Katie Rose McLaughlin Turns the Isolation of the Pandemic Into a Choreographed Dance Piece

Katie Rose McLaughlin is an Obie and Drama League Award-winning choreographer and director based in New York City, originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Designated Movement Company, an avant-garde dance theater company founded in 2013.

McLaughlin trained in ballet under Bonnie Mathis and attended the Joffrey/New School BFA program on full scholarship before moving to Switzerland to study at a renowned clown school. Her work examines the hierarchical structures society places on bodies—told through a queer, feminist lens—and has been presented at Ars Nova, La Mama, St. Anne’s Warehouse, Abrons Arts Center, and Williamstown, among others. She served as Associate Director and Choreographer on the Tony Award-winning Broadway production of Hadestown across Broadway, the First National Tour, New York Theater Workshop, Edmonton, and South Korea, and as Associate Choreographer on Dead Outlaw in 2025.

McLaughlin’s choreographed dance piece for Silver Lining’s Global series moves from the pandemic’s constraints into its emotional aftermath—shaped by what small business owners said they felt most: isolation and loneliness.

Silver Lining commissioned this work from Katie Rose McLaughlin as part of the small.artists Global series, supported by GoDaddy & JPMorgan Chase & Co.

From 2020 to 2022, Katie co-created over 20 evenings of work as Co-Creative Director of Theater in Quarantine—a pandemic performance laboratory that earned four New York Times Critic’s Picks and was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered.

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