Jennifer Polins

Jennifer Polins is a curator, mobilizer, movement practitioner and performance maker, bridging somatics -performance practices- and contemporary dance techniques for over 25 years. Jen is the founding director of The School for Contemporary Dance and Thought,and the director of Hatchery at SCDT. She holds an MFA in dance from Hollins University/The American Dance Festival and is a 2014 MCC choreographic fellow. Jen is also an assistant programmer for A.P.E.@Hawley. She has danced professionally in America and Europe, starting with the Joffrey Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet and then the Zurich Operahouse Ballet companies before migrating to a professional career in contemporary performance art. Jen specializes in combining dance technique and composition with rigorous improvisational practices, influenced by many mentors, most notably- Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Nancy Stark Smith, Steve Paxton, and Lisa Nelson. Jen is certified in Pilates, Gyrotonic, Gyrokinesis, Yoga, and Massage and studied Body Mind Centering for over 10 years. Jen's ongoing somatic studies deeply affect her curation, teaching and making. Jen is guest lecturer in the Five College Dance department and creates work and guest teaches in many regional colleges and universities. With SCDT, Jen works collaboratively with A.P.E.@ Hawley, San Francisco’s La Alternativa and the Ponderosa TanzLand Festival. She has collaborated most recently with late and great Kathleen Hermesdorf, Lisa Nelson, Wendy Woodson, Maurice Fraga, Joy Davis, Jen Nugent, Stephanie Maher, Peter Schmitz, Sarah Shelton Mann, Paul Matteson and James Morrow. 

See her work HERE.