Backhausdance celebrates modern themes through athletic yet lyrical contemporary movement. This company is a unique mix of physically powerful, socially diverse, beautifully trained dancers with an aggressive approach to motion. These dancers express their joy for their craft within an amazing ensemble dynamic, creating riveting performances full of passion, physical beauty, and a breathtaking execution of movement.

Jennifer Backhaus draws on many traditions of music and dance to create detailed, meticulously sculpted dances, high-speed expressions that burn hot and fade away as audiences thrill and delight in their splendor. She integrates the rich sounds of world music with a tempo driven rush of dance creating lush layers of imagery. Her energy and stamina in creating new works keeps her dancers and her audiences intrigued and eager for more

Artistic Director Jennifer Backhaus formed Backhausdance in January of 2003. The company is a 501c3, not for Profit Corporation with the mission to expose and educate the community about the relevance and vitality of concert dance forms. The company currently consists of 12 dancers who all hold BFA degrees in Dance Performance from Chapman University.

Backhausdance has an eclectic and dynamic vocabulary borrowing from many dance styles. Their movement is physically demanding and original with a wonderful sense of fluidity and strength.

The company had its debut performance at the San Francisco Retail Dance Festival in May 2003, and has continued to perform extensively in California at venues and festivals including, the Los Angeles Dance Invitational, the LA Arts Holiday Celebration held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, as guest artists for the California Dance Educators Fall Conference, the Celebration of Dance Festival at the Alex theatre, the Celebrate Dance Festival in San Diego, and at the McCallum Theatre’s Dance Under the Stars Choreography Festival where they won the Dance Under the Stars Award in 2003 and the Muses 2 nd Place Award at the 2004 and 2005 festival. In the fall of 2004, the company was also invited to perform at the SOLA Festival and as artists in residence at Santa Ana College.