WHO WE ARE
Trainor Dance is a group of dancers led by Artistic Director Caitlin Trainor. We createimaginative and highly physical dances for the stage and unexpected spaces. Our work ranges from pure dance to experimental, game-based performance. From dances to Mozart with flying silk skirts to a gallery event with audiences wielding paint loaded super soakers, Trainor Dance has a thirst for adventure underpinned by a love of good structure.
CAITLIN TRAINOR
Named by Dance Magazine as "One of 25 to Watch in 2016,” Caitlin Trainor is a dancer, choreographer, entrepreneur and the artistic director of Trainor Dance.
Originally from Rhode Island, Trainor fell in love with dance during her college years at Skidmore under the tutelage of Debra Fernandez. She received her MFA in dance from Mills College in Oakland, CA before moving to New York City and performing for the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, Seán Curran, and site-specific choreographer Stephan Koplowitz. Driven by music and imagination, Trainor creates and performs highly physical, intensely human dances. She performs solo work and choreographs on her company, as well as for schools and companies including Columbia Ballet Collaborative, St. Paul’s School, Nacre Dance Company, Polaris Dance, Northumbria University, Providence College, Murray State University, Kennesaw State University and Rosie’s Theater Kids.
Trainor has been featured on the dance podcasts Conversations on Dance, Pod a Duex, and Movers & Shapers, where she discussed her online dance class startup Dancio, dance as a spiritual practice, and the advantages of a free-range childhood. She is a member of the dance faculty at Barnard College Columbia University, and has taught at American Ballet Theatre, Montclair State University, Sarah Lawrence College, The Master’s School and many more.
PAST:Trainor Dance was founded in 2011 and is a 501c3 organization.
We have performed at The Yard (Martha’s Vineyard), Jacob’s Pillow (Becket,MA), TEDx Columbia University Engineering, Battery Dance Festival (Manhattan, NY), the World ScienceFestival, Platform Northeast (Newcastle, England), the Saratoga Springs Summer Arts Fest, JoyceSoho, Center for New Media (CT), BAAD (Bronx, NY) , SUNY Purchase (Westchester, NY), Barnard College and many more locations in and around NYC.
PRESENT: Our current repertory includes 3 major works:
Digital Delulu addresses the effects of digitization on our collective humanity, featuring 8 women as automatons, wild dogs, and reborn into an imagined eden. Play the Game, set to the music of Freddie Mercury, is about love, power, and the influence of groupthink in romantic relationships. Fact or Fiction? is a game based show in which 5 electrifying performers tell outrageous stories through language and movement. The audience votes on the veracity of each using auction paddles.
FUTURE: Our vision is to make the world better through art.
We create dances that provoke thought and uplift the spirit. Ask Caitlin about the dances she is dreaming up because there is always plenty on the cooker! Join us in building our future by making a donation.
Above- “Faux Pas” at Jacob’s Pillow. Photo by Christopher Duggan. Top right-Caitlin improvising, with artists at the International Dance Omi Residency, photographer unknown