Janice Lancaster is a dancer, choreographer, educator, and advocate. Her projects are a nexus for collaboration, research, and the generation of work that expands how and where dance is shared. She is inspired by dance’s power to both commune with the unknown and serve as a cultural artifact revealing performative perceptual modes and ecologies.

She has received commissions through Hubbard St. 2, VIA Dance Collaborative, the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, Bard Music Festival, Bessie Schönberg Choreographer’s Residency on the Yard, Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center, Moog Music, The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, and the Reynolda House Museum of American Art.

While continuing to make and share her own work, Janice has had the pleasure of performing with Shen Wei Dance Arts from 2005 to 2018. Recent collaborations are with The Algae Society and NC dance artists: Stewart/Owen Dance, Kira Blazek Ziaii, Kristin Clotfelter/Studio C Projects, Zap McConnell, Ray Schwartz, and Christina Soriano. Past collaborations include diverse figures and organizations such as the San Francisco Symphony, Omaha Opera, Danielle Russo Performance Project, Lauri Stallings/GloATL, Aynsley Vandenbroucke Movement Group, Satoshi Haga/binbin Factory, Rodger Belman, Celia Rowlson-Hall, and Abby Chan. She has collaborated on improvisational work with Lance Gries, Renee Archibald, Miguel Gutierrez, KJ Holmes, and many ad hoc performance groups.

Her work has been presented in New York City at Movement Research at Judson Church, Dance New Amsterdam, The Ailey Citigroup Theatre, Galapagos Art Space’s FRAMEWORKS Film Series, Joyce Soho Presents, Dixon Place’s Underexposed Series, Movement Research’s Open Performance, One Arm Red, and elsewhere: The American Dance Festival Draftworks and MFA Concert (Durham, NC), the Chisenhale Dance Space’s TV Dinners Festival (London), WUK Association for the Creation of Open Culture and Workshop Houses (Vienna), CCN-Ballet de Lorraine (Nancy, France), Performática (Puebla/Cholula, Mexico); The Fulton Opera House (Lancaster, PA), The McCallum Theatre (Palm Desert, CA); The Casa Hoffman (Curitiba, Brazil); and The Honolulu Theatre for Youth (Honolulu, HI). 

She has completed Gibney Dance’s Institute for Community Action Training (ICAT) and Domestic Violence Movement Workshop, and Lincoln Center’s Summer Forum Teaching Artist Development Lab: Aesthetic Education Immersion. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from Hollins University/American Dance Festival, a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of NC School of the Arts, and is a certified Hatha and Restorative yoga teacher.