M.F.A., State University of New York, College at Brockport
B.A., Belhaven University
Vanessa Van Wormer, originally from Spokane, Washington, is a choreographer and educator with an extensive performance and creative career. She has danced with Ballet Spokane, Bill Evans Dance Company, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, The Spokane Opera, and at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. Internationally, she has been a guest artist for Ticino in Danza in Lugano, Switzerland, The American School in Switzerland, and Florence Summer Dance.
Her award-winning ballet short film, The Dust of this Place, has screened at festivals in Toronto, New York, Berlin, Japan, Belgium, London, and Florence. Nationally, her choreography has been commissioned by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra Pops series and presented at leading festivals and venues, including REVERBdance (NYC and Boston), Eastman School of Music, Memorial Art Gallery, The Yards Collaborative, Take Root Festival at Green Space (NYC), Core Project Chicago, and the Pasadena Dance Festival.
Van Wormer served as Associate Professor of Dance at Santa Monica College for ten years, where she taught ballet, contemporary technique, and choreography, and developed and co-directed the Dance in New York City travel study program. Previously, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor at SUNY College at Brockport, where she taught ballet and was Artistic Director of Chamber Ballet Brockport, a multidisciplinary touring ensemble. Van Wormer regularly collaborates with live musicians and multi-media artists to create original site-specific works and installations, bringing dance into non-traditional performance spaces.
Van Wormer holds an MFA in Dance Choreography and Performance from SUNY College at Brockport and a BA from Belhaven University. She completed research for her Thesis at Roehampton University in London, on innovations in contemporary ballet choreography. She is an ABT® Certified Teacher, certified to teach Pre-Primary- Level 7/Pointe & Partnering.
Outside of teaching and creative work, Van Wormer enjoys gardening and traveling with her husband (also a Belhaven alum) and two young girls.
