Top Dog.

Originally from Colorado, Malinda LaVelle graduated from the University of Arizona Summa Cum Laude, where she received her BFA in dance while working with various choreographers including Charles Moulton, Paul Sanasardo, and Amy Ernst. While living in San Francisco, Malinda has performed with Alex Ketley’s The Foundry, Alyce Finwall Dance Theater, Manuelito Biag’s Shift>>>Physical Theater, and in 2012, she was awarded a 2012 Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Performance as a Company in Terra Incognita: Revisited. She has studied extensively at Summer Lee Rhatigan’s San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, and has served on the Conservatory’s faculty as a guest choreographer for their summer intensive programs since 2009. Malinda now teaches for the year round program at SFCD and is currently an artist-in-residence at both The Garage and the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance with her company, Project Thrust. Since it's inception in 2010, Project Thrust has performed in Ben Levy's Salon, at The Garage as part of their Resident Artist Workshop (RAW) program, in the 2011 Women on the Way Festival, in CounterPulse's 2nd Sundays, and at Z Space as part of the SF Conservatory of Dance's 2011 Summer Dance Series.

Photo: Rob Kunkle / Good Lux Photography