Chloe Jensen is the Founder and Creative Director of Aerial Dance Chicago, a nonprofit organization she formed in 1999 to explore her vision of taking dance into flight.

As a dancer, choreographer, teacher and director, Chloe’s artistry is focused on harnessing the full potential for dance expression along the air-ground continuum. Her early explorations of aerial dance began in the College of Performing Arts at Northern Illinois University from 1994-1999, where she earned a specialized bachelors degree combining dance, education and physical education and pursued independent research examining the ways in which movement and physical fitness are critical for learning capacity and mental acuity. While a dancer at NIU, Chloe received a Certificate for Performance Excellence from the American College Dance Festival Association for her performance of Version Two, a duet danced atop a nine-foot vertical wall. Chloe continued her study of dance, choreography and kinesiology in graduate school at Arizona State University, where she taught Ballet, Acrobatic Dance and Aerial Dance to dance majors, dance minors and recreational students in the College of Fine Arts.

Presented locally and nationally, her choreography has been described as “exquisite”, “poetic” and “breathtaking” and has been critically acclaimed for its inventive movement and strong sense of visual drama. In 2001, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs granted support toward the development and production of her airborne dance choreography Lifelines and in 2004 Chloe received the prestigious Glenn P. Davis scholarship from the International Aerial Dance Festival in Boulder, Colorado. Recent works of the company that have been performed to critical acclaim include UnEarthed (2011), Gravity (2013), Aya (2015) and Ghost Stories (2016).

On stage, The Chicago Tribune and Chicago Reader have described Chloe as a “seamlessly elastic” mover with “a quiet intensity and sensitivity not unlike that of the Balanchine dancer Tanaquil Le Clercq.” A highlight of her performing career was dancing the lead role in AYA, an original airborne story-ballet that was co-created with Elements Contemporary Ballet. In addition to her work for ADC, she has danced for The Lyric Opera of Chicago and for a unique trampoline-ballet by Cirque du Soleil choreographer Debra Brown.

Now entering its 19th season, Chloe continues her work toward the development of Aerial Dance Chicago to further its mission to enrich our community with the fine art of aerial dance. Inventive and intensely physical, the work of the company reawakens humanity’s craving for live, kinetic and creative experiences and contributes to the vibrancy and empowerment of our community.