Andrew Champlin

Bio:

Andrew Champlin is an American dance artist and researcher based in Germany. After pre-professional training at The School of American Ballet, Champlin found alternative perspectives on movement and performance in New York City’s experimental dance scene where he has performed with visual artists and choreographers such as Xavier le Roy, Miguel Gutierrez, Pam Tanowitz, Ryan McNamara, Heather Kravas, Madeline Hollander and Jillian Peña among others–experiences that culminated in a New York dance and performance Bessie Award nomination and touring across The United States, Europe, and Asia. In 2013, Andrew began assisting ballet instructor Jant Panetta, whom he has worked with in various international contexts such as Impulstanz Vienna International Dance Festival and CAMPING at CND Paris. Since 2018, Champlin has been a guest artist at UDK/HZT Berlin, where he has created seminars, technique classes, and workshops that invite students to process how their dance practices relate to specific histories of embodiment, queer feminism, and geopolitics. In 2019, Champlin received a Masters of Arts in Choreography in the New Performative Practices MA at DOCH School of Dance and Circus during which time he was also teaching at DOCH’s BA Contemporary Dance program, Dancentrum, and Cullberg. A growing interest in anti-racist and feminist discourse has led Champlin toward a PhD in Artistic Research. Champlin is currently involved with the PEERS program at Zurich University of the Arts where he is developing a practice-based doctoral project that examines how ballet overlaps with contemporary art and politics.

Class Description: 

This technique class explores movement possibilities with ballet information. The class gives dancers space to understand how ballet forms function in their bodies as/in/through movement. Core technical concepts from classical ballet and the pedagogy of Janet Panetta are offered in an environment that nurtures a contemporary gaze and process. Students work with each other generously as Andrew offers precise individual coaching with information everyone might benefit from questioning. The class advances through technical lessons at the barre, in linear postures, across the floor exercises, and jumping, where each exercise challenges dancers to feel, consider, and practice how their movement performs best with less muscular strain. Inviting dancers to research ballet in its most physical terms, through balancing principles of strength and release, tradition and innovation, the class is also a study on how to deconstruct classical aesthetics and conventions.