Lauren Post has a busy month ahead of her. This week, Post, a dancer in the American Ballet Theatre’s corps de ballet, is performing in “Romeo and Juliet” at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City; last week, “Swan Lake,” and next week, “Like Water for Chocolate.” Four days after that show closes, she and her family are moving to the Twin Cities.
And in mid-August, Post takes over as Minnesota Dance Theatre & School’s school director, now the top role in the organization previously known just as Minnesota Dance Theatre. MDT was started in 1962 by choreographer Loyce Houlton. Her daughter Lise Houlton ran the organization from her mother’s death in 1995 until last fall, when her own daughter Kaitlyn Gilliland briefly took over in an interim capacity.
Elayna Waxse has led the organization since January. In early 2024, MDT announced it was winding down its long-running professional performance company to focus solely on education. (Around the same time, another local dance staple, the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts, also announced the end of its regular performance schedule.
) Post, who grew up in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, joined the renowned American Ballet Theatre in 2008. Since 2018, in addition to performing with ABT, she has also run CoLab Dance, a dance company she founded to commission and perform new work during professional theaters’ off-seasons. Her husband grew up in Minnesota, she said, and they had already been planning to .