Laura Mendes is a Brazilian dancer constantly broadening her horizons. Her curiosity, dedication, and passion for Dance lead her life. She started dancing at 4, and pre-professional training at 11 years old. Her studies consist of classical ballet, contemporary, Forsythe technique, Gaga, jazz, musical theater, modern, improvisation, choreography development, and beyond. Mendes was awarded second place overall soloist at Joinville Dance Festival, the world's largest dance festival (Guinnes Book since 2005). She performed as soloist at international dance festival Tanzolymp in Berlin/Germany 2018. Also in 2018, Laura received a merit scholarship to attend Joffrey Ballet School/ NYC. While at Joffrey, she performed works by Yin Yue, Greg Lau, Yosito Sakuraba and Antonia Franceschi. She was also a member with the Joffrey Ballet Concert Group; Performing works by Omar Roman de Jesus, Eric Trope and Bradley Shelver. Laura kept her connection with Mr.Shelver as his assistant in his new creation for Graham II. Laura spent the summer with Netherlands Dance Theater, with a full scholarship award, performed a world premiere by Paxton Ricketts; Besides works by Hofesh Shechter and Jiri Kylian. She was also granted a scholarship for Orsolina28, exploring pieces by Crystal Pite in 2022 and Batsheva repertorie/GAGA methodica with Ohad Naharin himself in 2024. In Hubbard Street Chicago summer program Mendes performed a new creation by Adam McGaw, James Gregg, Alysia Johnson, and Ashley Green. In NYC she had the opportunity to learn A.I.M repertoire with Kyle Abraham himself.
In film and television, she worked for awarded film producers in commercials for Pantene and Farm Rio.
Currently, Mendes is a company member at Visceral Dance Chicago and Ballet Faculty at Visceral Dance Center. Laura had a thrilling experience to embody CARMEN's lead role in CARMEN.maquia. An evening lengh ballet by the acclaimed Gustavo Ramirez Sansano, this past summer of 2024 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. She also had her choreographic work "The Nest" performed at Visceral Dance Chicago' WITHIN performance.
