Lorena Bravo

Lorena Bravo was first introduced to competitive ballroom dancing her freshman year at the University of Southern California, while studying to receive her Bachelor of Arts in psychology, with a minor in Neuroscience. She continued to study competitive ballroom while completing her Master of Arts in Teaching, also from USC. In 2007, she and her partner, Evan Yeh, became U.S. National Amateur finalists in American Rhythm and the 9 Dance category. Later that same year, she also won the U.S. Pro-Am American Smooth Championship with Jonathan Atkinson. She continues competing professionally with Jonathan to this day and has won various professional titles.

Lorena has been the head coach of the USC Ballroom Dance Team since 2008, and guest teaches and judges for many universities, including the Claremont colleges, UC Santa Barbara, Cal Poly SLO, Cal Tech, and University of Wisconsin. She has also been a adjunct faculty at the American Musical and Dramatics Academy, and is a contributing writer for BallroomDancers.com. Certified with the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dance, Lorena continues to teach dancers of all ages and levels. She will begin teaching a chapter of Dancing for Parkinsons later this year, which introduces the challenge of teaching dance as therapy. She has been a featured dancer in tv shows, commercials, and music videos, and has choreographed for television and stage as well. She is very excited to join the Chapman Department of Dance and share her love of ballroom dancing.