ARTISTIC

RESEARCH

doctoral project + research activities

Doctoral Project

Technique Concerns: Ballet Practices Against the Western Archive

The University of Applied Arts Vienna

Supervisor: Bouchra Khalili

Special thanks to Zürich University of the Arts, Ruth Anderwald, Friederike Lampert & Leonhard Grond

Research area: dance/dance studies/performance studies

Topic: embodied technique/pedagogy

This PhD project investigates training practices in the performing arts, with a particular focus on classical ballet techniques. It examines specific approaches to ballet knowledge-transfer that challenge the Western canon’s association of rigor with virtuosic appearance and strict adherence to hierarchical power structures. Ballet technique is reimagined as a site of feeling, where alignment and an openness to full-body experience generate an epistemological tension with its historical framework.

Whether one has studied ballet for a day or a lifetime, the research prioritizes the contemporary moment of practice, asking how ballet might evolve. Andrew Champlin draws on his own experience teaching ballet to heterogeneous groups of professionally oriented dancers in New York City and Europe. The project explores key questions: How does focusing on sensation transform the dancer’s experience of the form? What impact does this sensorial emphasis have on the history of ballet? Could prioritizing feeling gradually shift entrenched notions of how ballet is embodied?

The hypothesis driving this research is that prioritizing sensation in ballet training creates dissonance with traditional learning structures, which often center technique on image production. How does teaching dancers to “feel well” in their bodies reshape their relationship to the form? In focusing on sensation, we encounter landscapes of desire and vulnerability. What shifts occur when we acknowledge this complex terrain in the process of knowledge transfer?

This artistic research critically reflects on the experience of learning ballet, seeking to illuminate alternative ways of studying traditional forms. The project aims to reveal what becomes possible when the boundaries of a classical art form are pushed through embodied technique, which remains inherently transmissible.

Drawing on Erin Manning’s concept of the anarchive, this research is both self-reflective and collaborative. It engages deeply with the legacy of independent ballet teacher Janet Panetta (1948–2023), whose pedagogy Andrew Champlin studied as her assistant from 2013 until her passing. Panetta theorized technique as “a system of clarifying how your body works for you,” reimagining traditional hierarchies between dancers as well as between teachers and students.

A central component of the project is an experimental art film, conceived as an alternative archive. The film will include reflections from Panetta’s alumni and create performative and discursive spaces to examine what is lost—and what might be gained—when diverging from traditional methods of learning ballet technique.

Research Activities

This section highlights Andrew Champlin’s artistic research and archives his contributions to dance, including performance lectures, talks, workshops, publications, research labs, collaborative teaching, and interdisciplinary courses in academia and the independent scene.

  • LET'S TALK ABOUT BALLET

    Knowledge Exchange Format

    Conversation between Andrew Champlin and Prof. Dr. Friederike Lampert + workshop

    Zürich University of the Arts

    What role does ballet technique play in contemporary dance training, and how is it taught today?

    This question is more relevant than ever, prompting dance institutions to rethink not what is taught in ballet, but how. In recent decades, alongside ballet and classical modern techniques, contemporary dance aesthetics have given rise to additional stage dance techniques, expanding the skills required of dancers. Directors and teachers continually reflect on how to integrate this diversity into professional training and reconsider ballet’s role, given its 400-year dominance in European stage dance.

    In this exchange, we invite dance experts to explore new approaches to ballet education and its evolving place in contemporary training.

    Participants: teachers of BA/MA Dance and taz, MA Teaching students.

    October 23, 2024

    Photo © Friederike Lampert

  • DIFFRACTIVE DIALOGUES

    Research Laboratory

    BACKPULVER

    Diffractive Dialogues

    Inspired by Karen Barad’s concept of diffractive engagement, BACKPULVER developed Diffractive Dialogues—immersive three-day programs fostering in-depth exchanges between local artists and their practices. This format highlights the intersection, overlap, and divergence of artistic ideas and embodied experiences.

    At its core are two guiding questions: What if feedback became an act of “reading through,” diffracting artistic material through one’s own practice? How might this shift transform the feedback process?

    Over three days, artists Malcolm Manning, Andrew Champlin, and Sebastian Bechinger will lead participants through dialogues shaped by their distinct practices. By examining both shared and divergent perspectives, the program cultivates a collective critical approach, encouraging knowledge exchange, insight-sharing, and the challenging of assumptions.

    October 28-30, 2024

    Photo © Sebastian Bechinger

  • JANET PANETTA REPERTORY

    Exhibition

    Scholar in Residence

    Garth Greenan Gallery, New York City

    In collaboration with a collective of Janet Panetta’s former students, I contributed to the exhibition Janet Panetta Repertory, which presented archival videos, writings, and photographs honoring the independent ballet teacher Janet Panetta (1948–2023). Additionally, I worked with Panetta’s community of ballet practitioners on a film project, which also serves as a case study in my PhD research on ballet pedagogy.

    August 15-29, 2024

  • BAD BALLET

    Event

    Tanzquartier Vienna

    In Bad Ballet, three dance artists and a historian challenge ballet’s traditional discipline and hierarchy with pleasure, exchange, and joy. Andrew Champlin, Elizabeth Ward, and Kevin Fay lead a course indifferent to virtuosity, sharing research, embodied ballet histories, and choreography from The Nutcracker. Anna Leon’s lecture explores ballet’s decentralized, often invisible history as an entertainment spectacle.

    June 15, 2024

    For more info click here

  • PUBLIC COLLOQUIUM 2024

    Performance Lecture

    The University of Applied Arts Vienna

    A meeting-point for artistic and scholarly practices, this event showcased current PhD candidates at the University of Applied Arts Vienna’s research projects in process.

  • ENVELOPE 6

    Published Essay

    The University of Applied Arts Vienna Research Journal

    The essay weaves fragmented perspectives—the movement facilitator, the child, and the academic—to explore the temporality of a dancing subject. It reflects on pedagogy as a site of renewed sensual experience, confronting ballet’s enduring standards, where self-abnegation intertwines with the desire to embody its idealized form.

    Published June, 2024

  • EMBODIED BRICOLEUR

    Workshop

    Stockholm University of the Arts

    BA Contemporary Dance

    This choreographic workshop explores knowledge transfer, queer theory, flea markets, archives, GIFs, and children's books as lenses into “what’s in the world.” Through reflection and shared learning, participants examine their learning styles, deconstruct favorite dances, and transform movement pathways to create choreographies collectively.

    September, 2023

  • CERTAIN DANCE CIRCUMSTANCE

    Field Research Project // Lenio Kaklea and Andrew Champlin

    ImPulsTanz Vienna International Dance Festival

    How does embodied technical knowledge support dance-making, and how can choreography challenge our assumptions about skill and technique?

    This research project explores structuring a process that nurtures both movement vocabulary and choreographic ideas, particularly within the Western canon. We examine when technical knowledge is essential, when it isn't, and how embodied skill can enrich performance. Viewing choreography as a set of tools that shape and challenge embodiment, we share discoveries, reflect on learning, and develop choreographies through collective exploration.

    July 31 - August 4, 2023

  • ENVELOPE 5

    Published Essay

    The University of Applied Arts Vienna Research Journal

    For Envelope 5, this exposé explores the notion of squaring-off, a concept emerging in research on ballet technique through both physical and theoretical resonances. It examines the body's alignment with spatial geometries to create a sense of unity while also confronting power structures that may constrain the practitioner. The contribution includes a self-interview on the research topic and a poetic infographic, inviting readers to visualize the layered experience of engaging with a technique from the Western canon.

    Published June, 2023

    To visit the exposition on the Research Catalogue click here

  • PUBLIC COLLOQUIUM 2023

    Performance Lecture

    The University of Applied Arts Vienna

    As part of the PhD at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, recent findings were presented in multiple formats: a sculpture in a group exhibition and a public lecture performance followed by feedback from the community and guest critic Mariella Greil. The presentation offered a personal narrative on performer training, encouraging researchers to explore alternative ways of engaging with the body, particularly within rigid systems like traditional ballet pedagogy.

    Presenting at this early stage provided an opportunity to test methods for communicating embodied research, examining how to bridge art and scholarship. Through practice and risk-taking, the project questions how embodied forms of communication align with conventional academic structures and which insights resonate most effectively.

  • JUNIOR RESEARCH GROUP

    Dialogue with VK Preston, Macjlin Kowal, and Andrew Champlin

    Zürich University of the Arts (ZHdK)

    Through the Junior Research Group of ZHdK, guests VK Preston (Concordia University) and Macklin Kowal (Aristotle University) were invited for a series of discussions on aesthetic training and bodily practices amid epistemic shifts in higher education. What began as an intimate exchange expanded to include fellow artistic researchers, broadening the conversation. Key themes included the relationship between practice and theory, the impact of art market trends on university structures, and the evolving practice of art-making in response to global changes in education and knowledge sharing.

    March 30, 2023

  • RHYTHMS COLORS PATTERNS

    Universität der Kunst / Hochschule Zentrum Tanz

    BA Dance, Context, Choreography

    Summer Semester 2021 & Winter Semester 2021-22

    This semester-long practice-based seminar, co-facilitated with jazz pianist Assaf Fleischmann, integrates ballet and music through rhythm and embodiment. Alongside technical studies, participants create sequential choreographies and improvisational scores to apply their learning. Using instruments, voice, and body percussion, we explore complex musical concepts such as changing meters, polyrhythm, and syncopation, while learning about music histories, including African American jazz and minimalism. Acknowledging the histories of oppression tied to these traditions, we engage with texts and films to contextualize our work, reflecting on ballet’s evolution through African-originated skills and aesthetics.

  • BALLET FOR CONTEMPORARY DANCERS

    Workshop

    Zurich University of the Arts

    MA Choreography & MA Dance Pedagogy

    Janet Panetta, a renowned ballet teacher, defines technique as "a system of clarifying how your body works for you." This challenges traditional views of technique, which often prioritize achieving a desired image over the body’s function. This workshop is for dancers who are ready to explore technique as a means of connecting with others—whether as teachers, collaborators, or audiences.

    The workshop examines how a foundation in embodied aesthetic knowledge can serve as a bridge to contemporary social issues and critical thinking.

    October, 2021

  • YESTERDAY TODAY TOMORROW, MY MOVEMENT PRACTICE

    Universität der Kunst / Hochschule Zentrum Tanz

    BA Dance, Context, Choreography

    Summer Semester 2021 & Winter Semester 2021-22

    This semester-long course, co-facilitated by Regina Baumgart and myself, is designed for students who wish to develop their own movement practice—whether as a daily routine, a training method, or in relation to a specific choreographic project or performance concept.

    Regina and I support students’ independent research by offering guidance and facilitating discussions on key aspects of movement practice and development. We share our own daily practices and encourage students to lead "input sessions" for their peers. The course fosters skills in teaching and providing feedback, helping students engage with others on both aesthetic and methodological levels.

  • BALLET IN TIMES OF CHANGE OR Why the Pleasant Face?

    Universität der Kunst / Hochschule Zentrum Tanz

    BA Dance, Context, Choreography

    Winter Semester 2020

    This semester-long workshop, co-facilitated with sound artist and performer Zen Jefferson, explores the relationship between electronic sound and movement. We engage with themes such as popular rhythms, improvised physical expressions, and the intersection of these with the structured technique of classical ballet. Throughout the semester, we hold intimate dialogues about our experiences moving to Zen’s music and within ballet, focusing on the emotional and physical effects of sound and movement.

  • TRY IT AGAIN

    Universität der Kunst / Hochschule Zentrum Tanz

    BA Dance, Context, Choreography

    Summer Semester 2020*

    This semester-long interdisciplinary course explores routine dance practices from personal and interpersonal perspectives. We examine socio-political and historical views on self-cultivation, grounding our discussions in critical theory to better understand our relationships to manual labor and productivity as dancers. How is our work informed by the ways we measure progress within the paradox of ephemerality?

    The course incorporates theoretical frameworks on ephemerality through readings of Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, bell hooks' Teaching to Transgress, and Michel Foucault's 1983 lecture The Culture of the Self. We engage in discussions on the religious, economic, political, and philosophical dimensions of technique, bridging our experiences of movement training with the history of capitalism and the constructed self.

    *course facilitated online

  • PLAY IT AS IT LAYS

    Universität der Kunst / Hochschule Zentrum Tanz

    BA Dance, Context, Choreography

    Summer Semester 2019

    Borrowing its title from Joan Didion's novel, this workshop provides students with choreographic tools rooted in performative practices of reading bodies and writing space. We explore various ways of perceiving and projecting ephemeral information, structuring it in time. One time structure we examine is the pop song, studying the choreography from a 1970s performance by Ami Stewart. We contrast this with group readings of bell hooks' All About Love. Scores by Lisa Nelson add layers of witnessing to our process. Through these studies, participants develop compositions in small groups, modifying directives, discussing effects, and performing new iterations for one another.