About Gavin

Gavin Larsen is a writer, teacher, and former professional ballet dancer.

Born and raised in New York City, Gavin received her professional dance training at the School of American Ballet, the Pacific Northwest Ballet School and the New York School of Ballet. Over the course of her 18-year professional career, she was a member of Pacific Northwest Ballet, Alberta Ballet, the Suzanne Farrell Ballet, and Oregon Ballet Theatre, dancing prominent roles in ballets by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Anthony Tudor, James Kudelka, Christopher Wheeldon and Paul Taylor, as well as the major classical works and numerous original contemporary pieces.

Gavin retired from full-time performing in 2010 to focus on teaching, coaching and writing about dance, while continuing to pursue unique artistic opportunities. She has taught and coached widely across the country and been a guest teacher for schools in Japan and Canada. In 2010, Gavin was a founding member of Incoroporamento, a collaborative trio combining dance, poetry, and music, producing several performances to critical acclaim.

Gavin has been a regular contributor for Pointe, Dance Teacher, and Dance Spirit magazines, and her essay “Why I Dance” was published in Dance magazine in 2009. Her writing has appeared in Dance/USA’s online journal In the Green Room, Oregon ArtsWatch, the Dancing Times and Artslandia as well as the literary journals the Threepenny Review, Page & Spine, Sunlight Press, KYSO Flash, and The Maine Review. In 2015 she was honored with a fellowship to the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, NM, to pursue her work as a writer. Being a Ballerina: The Power and Perfection of a Dancing Life is her first book. She lives in Asheville, NC.