Laura Careless
Dance and Movement Teacher
Laura Careless is a Sussex-based dance performer, choreographer and educator. Her approach to movement is informed by her dance training and 20 years of performance experience on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as her long-term process of questioning, unraveling and re-integrating that training through the support of many different movement modalities.
She has performed and taught dance in a broad range of settings from the stages of the world's great opera houses to school gyms, cancer care centres, and baby/caregiver groups. She was the Dance Education Consultant for Rambert Classroom and is a Dance Curriculum Specialist for the K-12 (schools) department at The Juilliard School.
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As a child, Laura studied ballet locally on the Isle of Wight before attending The Royal Ballet Lower School (White Lodge) as a boarding student from age 11-16. In her final year at the school, she won multiple awards (Lynn Seymour Award for Expressive Dance; April Olrich Award for Dynamic Dance) but was described by teachers as "a square peg in a round hole" and told that she would need to "conform" in order to continue professional ballet training. Since then, she's spent her life attempting to do the opposite.
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A chance encounter with the technique of Martha Graham (a pioneer of American Modern dance) led her to study at The Juilliard Dance Division in New York City. She graduated with a BFA and prizes for Academic and Artistic Excellence. She remained in NYC for over a decade, performing with a range of dance and dance theatre companies. Highlights included performing on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House in a red silk ball gown; and creating the lead role in the Drama Desk-nominated show Nutcracker Rouge, an alternative, adults-only version of the classical ballet that has since become a New York City holiday tradition.
Throughout her performance career, Laura has been passionate about teaching and education. She comes from a family of teachers, so her artistic practice has never felt complete or well-grounded without the opportunity to share it with others. She cut her teeth as a teacher with inner-city middle schoolers at the New York Public School for Dance, and has also taught at Yale University, Harvard University and Broadway Dance Center. She now mentors teachers of Dance as a subject in schools, and liaises with school leadership teams to design Dance programmes that make movement and creativity available and accessible to all children. She co-curates the Professional Training programme at South East Dance in Brighton, and teaches adult beginner ballet classes at Smikle Studio in Hove.
She continues to perform as well, including a recent tour to Beirut, Lebanon, with the British Council of her one-woman show She-Wolves. This show was created in collaboration with Cambridge historian Helen Castor; Brighton-based, BBC Film Award-winning illustrator Belle Mellor; and National Dance Award-winning choreographer Jonathan Watkins, and tells the story of the women who ruled England before Elizabeth I. It was described in one review as "An essential watch for anyone wanting to rip the rug up from underneath patriarchy's view on history." Current creative dreams include a Concerto for Dancer and Orchestra in collaboration with her husband Ryan, and dancing in a barn with people in her local community.