Taryn Lavery (she/her), a native of Logan, Utah, fuses her classical background with a desire to vitalize modern dance for broader audiences, extracting a new form of contemporary performance. She is a freelance dancer and cross-disciplinary design artist with a creative philosophy rooted in the belief that presentation is an extension of process, deserving equal care and holding equal weight. Taryn co-founded BLiPSWiTCH with Nathan Brumbaugh, Alex Miller and Lucy Wilson in Austin in 2015 and remains co-director with Miller. She is a current dancer with Allysen Hooks, Performa/Dance and Ty&Co, and has worked with multimedia dance company ARCOS (2015-2022), Jennifer Sherburn (2016-2021), Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company, Collide Arts, SEAM Project, Ready/Set/Go! Dance, Blue Lapis Light, NunaMaana Immersive Dance Theatre, in Alex Miller’s Forgotten Memories (2014) and Nathan Brumbaugh’s Swings Asunder (2015, produced by aerial dance company Sky Candy). Taryn is also a back-up dancer for the bands A Giant Dog and Tinnarose, and has danced in music videos for them, as well as The Band of Heathens, Sweet Spirit, Dr. Joe, Topaz, Shimmer Island, and Danny Golden. In 2023 she was nominated for Best Choreographer/Dancer in The Austin Chronicle’s Best of Austin Awards Reader’s Poll.

Taryn's training began at the Cache Valley School of Ballet in Utah. She continued on to attend the University of Alabama on scholarship, and while there, performed and choreographed for Dance Alabama and was a member of the Alabama Repertory Dance Theatre. Before relocating to Austin she danced and created work for Birmingham's Sanspointe Dance Company for two seasons. Taryn has had the opportunity to train in programs at the University of Wyoming, Ballet West, American Ballet Theatre, and work under artists from companies such as Pilobolus, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Nederlands Dans Theater, Shen Wei Dance Arts, The Dance COLEctive and Merce Cunningham Dance Company. She trains consistently in Austin with BLiPSWiTCH, ARCOS, Allysen Hooks, Ty Graynor, Emily Rushing and Carissa Topham in contemporary forms, cross-trains in Pilates and kickboxing, and has studied Countertechnique®, Gyrokenisis®, and in programs abroad with Maria Campos and La Macana at La Caldera in Barcelona, Spain (2016).

As co-director of BLiPSWiTCH, alongside Alex Miller, Taryn works in and out of the dance studio creating and producing original evening length works, their Offbeat series— now upon it’s eleventh iteration— and representing the company at Wizard Rodeo (2022-2023), Austin Dance Festival (2016, 2021), Revolve: A Movement Display (2016-2019), Ready/Set/Go! Dance Salon (2018) and Dislocate (Santa Barbara, CA, 2018), among others. BLiPSWiTCH’s first evening length work, Diet Fizz Radio (2017), was nominated in four categories for the Austin Critics Table Awards— choreography, sound, dancer and lighting design— and later that year they presented Shoestring (2017), an evening length work with live jazz accompaniment. Taryn represented BLiPSWiTCH as artist in residence for the eighth installment of the ambitious Eleven Eleven project— this collaborative work, Roheline (2017), co-choreographed with Jennifer Sherburn, received a grant for development, which became BLiPSWiTCH’s third evening production, hone \ rile (2018). In 2019, BLiPSWiTCH presented an 8-hour marathon dance performance, Still Life III: Bathhouse, and their fifth evening work, On the Skids (2019). Dear V, (2021)— performed at an outdoor Shakespearean theater— brought BLiP back to live performance amidst the pandemic, followed by evening works Gentle our Driftless Caravan (2022)— co-created with Alexa Capareda, A Hair Can Split the Difference (2023)— based on co-director Alex Miller’s Master’s Thesis research, and Unstill Life (2024). BLiPSWiTCH was recently honored with The Austin Chronicle’s 2023 Critics Picks Best of Austin Award— “Best Choreography of Human Kinesis”.

Taryn is always interested in continuing to push the boundaries of movement through her work as a dancer and creator with BLiPSWiTCH and other artists.