Louisa Pancoast

Louisa has had the privilege of performing for such choreographers and directors as Yvonne Rainer, Claus Guth, Mona Fastvold, Celia Rowlson-Hall, Sommer Ulrickson, Pat Catterson, Pramila Vasudevan, Michelle Thompson-Ulerich, and Ashley McQueen, among others. Notable performances include The Metropolitan Opera's Salome (Salome Double, NYTimes Critics Pick), the Park Avenue Armory's Doppelgänger (NYTimes Critics Pick), and with Yvonne Rainer for the Museum of Modern Art's "Judson Dance Theater: The Work is Never Done." She also appeared in "Discipline," starring Amanda Seyfried, commissioned by Miu Miu; with musicians Jesse Malin and Billie Joe Armstrong in "Strangers and Thieves" (directed by the Kuperman Brothers); and with Lando Chill.

 

Louisa's recent choreographic work is rooted in choreorobotics. Her piece Austringer (co-created with Dr. Nialah Wilson-Small, performed by Smashworks Dance) premiered at the 2025 International Conference on Robotics and Automation and The Boiler, BK. She also co-authored "Exploring Human-Drone Collaboration Through Contact Improvisation" with Dr. Wilson-Small (presented at the 2023 Human Robotics Interactions Conference and published by the Association of Computing Machinery) and "Implicit collaboration with a drawing machine through dance movements" with Alexandra Bremers.

 

Her choreography is also frequently commissioned by curators and visual artists for interdisciplinary performance installations. Louisa has collaborated with Melissa Stern, Evan Paul English, Etty Yaniv, and Ellen Hawley for exhibitions at Main Window DUMBO, Garvey|Simon, -the gallery ltd-, The Boiler, and Metro Arts Studios. Additional past work includes W.B. Yeats' Purgatory produced by Plaxall Gallery, and First in Half, Then in Quarters, produced by Mixily Presents.

 

Currently, Louisa is an artist-in-resident at the Robotics, Automation, and Dance Lab in Philadelphia under the direction of Amy LaViers. In addition to performing, Louisa holds her B.A. in English Literature and Art History from New York University.