Jenn "wins us over. Flying with effortlessness and musicality... she offers new appreciation of the music." -Reading Dance
Jenn Pray is a dance artist and educator with an M.F.A. in Dance from the University of Washington Seattle. Her performance career includes contemporary repertory companies, devised dance-theater work, and interdisciplinary place-based performances, with tours in Mexico, Germany, the Netherlands, and the Caribbean. She toured and taught nationally as a company member of Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater (SPDT), including residencies at St. Olaf College, University of Alabama Birmingham, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Shenandoah University, North Alamo Community College and University of Minnesota Duluth. Jenn’s additional performance credits include Threads Dance Project, STRONGmovement, Live Action Set, Ballet Minnesota and works by Crystal Pite, Camille A. Brown, Shapiro & Smith, Joe Goode, Martha Clarke, José Limón, Leyya Tawil and James Sewell.
Jenn’s choreography blends movement and language to comment on themes of social division and failed attempts to control our environment. Her performance works have been presented by Tanzwerkstatt Europa in Munich, the Henny Jurriëns Stichting in Amsterdam, the Chamber Dance Company in Seattle and the Southern Theater in Minneapolis. Commissions include Threads Dance Project, the Iowa Choreography Festival, Iowa Dance Theatre, the Minnesota Museum of American Art and the Phipps Dance Company. Jenn is the recipient of the Gaia Fenna Memorial Fellowship at Tofte Lake Center and was an Iowa Center for the Arts Scholar.
In addition to her creative research, Jenn is a community dance scholar. She was honored with an Emerging Scholar Award at the International Arts in Society Conference at Carnegie Mellon in 2025. Her research on the expressive potential that arises from bridging language and movement is in the process of being published by the International Journal of Social, Political and Community Agendas in the Arts. She has been awarded grants to conduct community-engaged dance workshops through the Washburn Foundation and the Minneapolis Retired Teachers Inc.
A passionate educator, Jenn currently serves as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance at The University of Iowa where she teaches a range of technique and theory courses. She previously served as a Pre-Doctoral Lecturer at the University of Washington, and has served on faculty at Macalester College, Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists and Ashley Ballet Arts Academy. She is also an E-RYT 500 yoga teacher and has taught yoga and led yoga teacher trainings internationally since 2010.
Jenn’s choreography blends movement and language to comment on themes of social division and failed attempts to control our environment. Her performance works have been presented by Tanzwerkstatt Europa in Munich, the Henny Jurriëns Stichting in Amsterdam, the Chamber Dance Company in Seattle and the Southern Theater in Minneapolis. Commissions include Threads Dance Project, the Iowa Choreography Festival, Iowa Dance Theatre, the Minnesota Museum of American Art and the Phipps Dance Company. Jenn is the recipient of the Gaia Fenna Memorial Fellowship at Tofte Lake Center and was an Iowa Center for the Arts Scholar.
In addition to her creative research, Jenn is a community dance scholar. She was honored with an Emerging Scholar Award at the International Arts in Society Conference at Carnegie Mellon in 2025. Her research on the expressive potential that arises from bridging language and movement is in the process of being published by the International Journal of Social, Political and Community Agendas in the Arts. She has been awarded grants to conduct community-engaged dance workshops through the Washburn Foundation and the Minneapolis Retired Teachers Inc.
A passionate educator, Jenn currently serves as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance at The University of Iowa where she teaches a range of technique and theory courses. She previously served as a Pre-Doctoral Lecturer at the University of Washington, and has served on faculty at Macalester College, Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists and Ashley Ballet Arts Academy. She is also an E-RYT 500 yoga teacher and has taught yoga and led yoga teacher trainings internationally since 2010.
