About
Laurel Snyder (she/her) is a dance artist, educator, musician, pilates practitioner and embodiment facilitator based in NYC. She creates complex, visceral and vulnerable performances that slip between artistic sensibilities and seek authenticity through layered expression. Laurel has performed with artists Faye Driscoll, Tere O’Connor, Tatyana Tenenbaum and Kendra Portier at NYC venues such as BAM, the Chocolate Factory, Danspace Project, and the Kitchen and her choreography has been presented most recently by Gibney Work Up 5.0, FRESH Festival 2019 (SF), Triskelion Arts, the International Human Rights Arts Festival, Dixon Place, and CPR. She has been an artist-in-residence at BANFF Centre for Arts and Creativity (CAN), Denmark Arts Center (ME), EarthDance (MA), Threes Brewing (NYC), The Living Room (ME) and was a recipient of EtM 2017 Choreographer+Composer Residency and the 2018 Queens Council for the Arts New Work Grant. Laurel is passionate about teaching movement and vocal practices. She has been on the dance faculty at Rutgers University since 2017 and local and international organizations such as Gibney Dance, NYU Playwrights Horizons, Colby College, Leviathan Studios (BC), the School of Contemporary Dance and Thought (SCDT) and Dance Exchange have invited her as a teaching artist. Laurel has developed sound designs for choreographer, Trina Mannino and has acted as a vocal consultant for choreographers Nadia Tykulsker and Ivy Baldwin. In addition to her solo endeavors, Laurel maintains a nourishing collaboration with musicians Chris Williams (trumpet) and Joanna Mattrey (viola).
ARTIST STATEMENT:
I'm a mover, a maker, a singer, a shaker, a sounder, a grounder, a facilitator, a dreamer, a wild improvisor, a sound designer, a songwriter, a performer and forever a student.
My artistic practice can be found in whatever I'm doing. Whether it's the forgotten melody I'm humming, the anatomy book I'm studying, the physical challenge I've set for myself or the sweet moments of rest and pleasure, everything circuitously finds its way into the work I'm creating.
I consider my practice to be a journal of sorts that tracks my inevitable, durational transformation as an artist and a human. A reflective passage of time memorialized by hastily written notes or fragments of songs in a notebook, stream-of-consciousness voice memos, field recordings or what I call "sound snapshots" of the world around me and hours of film footage collected with my cracked iPhone.
Sometimes these materials culminate in songs, dances, films or something in between, something indefinable. This ambiguity initially made me uneasy, but I now understand that it only reaffirms my individuality.
When I share my creations with an audience, I value honesty, authenticity and vulnerability. Just as I “live” my practice, I create worlds onstage, in music or on film that allow me to express the realness of the present moment. I am here. You are here. We are here. Here we are.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
I'm a mover, a maker, a singer, a shaker, a sounder, a grounder, a facilitator, a dreamer, a wild improvisor, a sound designer, a songwriter, a performer and forever a student.
My artistic practice can be found in whatever I'm doing. Whether it's the forgotten melody I'm humming, the anatomy book I'm studying, the physical challenge I've set for myself or the sweet moments of rest and pleasure, everything circuitously finds its way into the work I'm creating.
I consider my practice to be a journal of sorts that tracks my inevitable, durational transformation as an artist and a human. A reflective passage of time memorialized by hastily written notes or fragments of songs in a notebook, stream-of-consciousness voice memos, field recordings or what I call "sound snapshots" of the world around me and hours of film footage collected with my cracked iPhone.
Sometimes these materials culminate in songs, dances, films or something in between, something indefinable. This ambiguity initially made me uneasy, but I now understand that it only reaffirms my individuality.
When I share my creations with an audience, I value honesty, authenticity and vulnerability. Just as I “live” my practice, I create worlds onstage, in music or on film that allow me to express the realness of the present moment. I am here. You are here. We are here. Here we are.
