Laura Ardner was born and raised in York, PA, and she currently resides in New York City. She fell in love with dancing at the age of six after taking a dance class at a gymnastics center. She began her dance training at The School of Music and Dance in Abbottstown, PA, and she went on to attend Slippery Rock University to pursue a BFA in Dance and a minor in Writing. She graduated summa cum laude from SRU in December, 2021. Presently, she is a dancing for NYC-based companies, DanceKerr and Dancers and Chutzpah Dance. Additionally, Laura has recently completed Broadway Dance Center's Independent Training Program in the fall of 2022, and she has trained at the Kizuna Dance Intensive, Martha Graham Winter Intensive, Movement Migration virtual winter intensive, FORGE Summer Dance Intensive, and she completed an internship through FORGE in 2019. At Slippery Rock University, she has held leadership roles as the vice president of the National Honor Society for Dance Arts, secretary of the Multidisciplinary Arts Collective, and a mentor to first-year students.

 

Laura has performed in works by Pearl Primus, Cameron McKinney, Ursula Payne, Michael Kerr, Erica Isakower, Samantha Baker, Jennifer Meckley, and Francine Ott. Laura’s choreography has recently been featured in Spring for Spring, Spark Theater Festival, Broadway Dance Center's Performance Project, Sprout Your Awareness and at the Adrienne Theater in Philadelphia, Project Moshen's Artistry Unfolded showcase, Koresh Artist Showcase, and the SRU Dance Theatre Fall Concerts in addition to the SRU virtual shows, "Fresh Moves" and "Against All Odds." Laura has recently developed an interest in dance-filmmaking, and her short film, Working Hard or Hardly Working? was chosen for the Quarantine Screen Selection of the 2020 92Y Mobile Dance Film Festival. Laura's film, Ctrl+Alt+Delete, was featured in the December 2020 edition of the "I'm Bored, What's Next?" virtual showcase.

 

Additionally, Laura enjoys expanding her view of the world by conducting written and movement-based research projects. Recently, she was selected to present her undergraduate research project, "Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences Applied to Choreography" at the 2021 National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) and at the SRU Student Research Symposium in 2021. Laura is also very fortunate to have received various awards from the SRU Department of Dance including the  "Outstanding Dance Teacher" award in 2021 and scholarships towards winter (2021, 2022) and summer (2018) dance intensives. She enjoys sharing her love of dance with others through dance pedagogy, and she is currently a Teaching Artist with Notes in Motion (through Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre) in NYC public schools. She also spent summers 2021-2022 as the head of the dance department instructing various dance classes at Camp Fernwood in Poland, Maine. Laura aspires to continue her passions of performing, choreographing, teaching, writing about dance, professional writing, and learning new skills.  

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