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Professional Overview

Dana Lawton

Former Department Chair for Performing Arts
SMC Dance Company
Artistic Director
Dana Lawton Dances

Artistic Director of Dana Lawton Dances, a modern dance company in the Bay Area, Dana is a tenured faculty member at Saint Mary's College in the Performing Arts Department, a faculty member at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center and Co-Director of the Enchanted Ridge Dance Workshop.

A founding member of Bay Area's acclaimed dance company, Janice Garrett & Dancers (Garrett+Moulton), Dana has had the honor of performing works by Joe Goode (Joe Goode Performance Group), Randee Paufve (Paufve Dance), Nina Haft (Nina Haft & Company), Rebecca Salzer (Rebecca Salzer Dance Theater) and Cathy Davalos (Davalos Dance Company) among others.

Artist-In-Residence at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in 2006, Dana founded Dana Lawton Dances. She was Artist-In-Residence at The Flight Deck, a new theater in the heart of downtown Oakland in 2015. Dana Lawton Dances was awarded Company-In-Residence in 2016.

Lawton has been presented at the Isadora Duncan Awards Ceremony, San Francisco, The Work Gallery, Brooklyn, New York and The Dallas Hub Theater in Dallas, Texas in addition to the Women on the Way Festival, 2nd Sundays Series, The Harvest Festival, the Vision Series, Pilot and, Flight Series at ODC, Summerfest Dance, and the San Francisco International Arts Festival.

Her dance company toured to France and participated in the Royère de Vassivière in Chamberet (2014), Belfast, N. Ireland (2016) and Bangkok, Thailand (2018 & 2022).

Lawton holds an MFA in Choreography from Mills College and a BFA in Dance from California Institute of the Arts.