GAVIN LARSEN
Born and raised in New York City, Gavin Larsen received her professional dance training at the School of American Ballet, the Pacific Northwest Ballet School and the New York School of Ballet. She began her professional career as a member of Pacific Northwest Ballet and went on to perform as a soloist with the Alberta Ballet and Suzanne Farrell Ballet and a principal with Oregon Ballet Theatre. Over the course of her career, Ms. Larsen danced prominent roles in the classical and neoclassical repertoire, including ballets by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, James Kudelka, Christopher Wheeldon, Paul Taylor, Yuri Possokhov, Kent Stowell and Christopher Stowell, among many others, and originated roles in numerous ballets.
She was a founding member of Incoroporamento, a collaborative trio combining dance, poetry, and music, producing several performances to critical acclaim. She retired from full time performing in 2010 to focus on teaching, coaching, and writing about dance and has taught extensively across the US, Canada, and Japan.Ms. Larsen has been a regular contributor for Pointe, Dance Teacher, and Dance Spirit magazines, and her essay “Why I Dance” was published in Dance magazine in 2009. Her writing has appeared in Dance/USA’s online journal In the Green Room, Oregon ArtsWatch, and Artslandia as well as several literary journals. In 2015 she was honored with a fellowship to the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, NM, to pursue her work as a writer. She lives in Asheville, NC.
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Gavin's new book, Being a Ballerina: The Power and Perfection of a Dance Life, is now available for pre-order on Amazon here: