James Batchelor
Choreographer
James Batchelor is an Australian choreographer from Ngunnawal Country/Canberra. Over the past fifteen years he has developed an internationally recognised choreographic practice presented throughout Europe, Asia and Australia. His work has been commissioned and presented by leading festivals and organisations including Aerowaves, Tanz im August, Sophiensaele, ImPulsTanz, Dansnät Sverige, Norrdans, Chunky Move, Dance Massive and December Dance, establishing him as one of Australia's distinctive contemporary choreographic voices.
Soon after graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts, Batchelor joined a two-month scientific expedition to the remote Heard and McDonald Islands in the sub-Antarctic. The experience profoundly reshaped his artistic practice, prompting an ongoing enquiry into movement, landscape, geology and time. Works including Deepspace and Hyperspace emerged from this research and have toured extensively throughout Europe, Asia and Australia.
This enquiry has since expanded into questions of history, embodied memory and transmission of dance. Created through Batchelor's research into the diasporic legacy of Ausdruckstanz in Australia and his work with children through Initiative LUNA PARK in Berlin, Notes of Self is an intimate solo that brings avant-garde dance history into dialogue with children's perspectives. Touring internationally, the work invites audiences of all ages into a playful conversation across generations, bodies and ways of seeing.
His recent ensemble work Resonance celebrates dance as a living act of transmission. Bringing together three generations of Australian dancers, including artists connected to the legacy of Tanja Liedtke alongside local guest performers in each touring city, the work explores memory, friendship and reinvention, revealing choreography as an enduring conversation carried from one body to another.
Alongside creating productions, Batchelor has developed an extensive international practice as an educator, mentor and collaborator. He has created and taught work with organisations including the Victorian College of the Arts, Sydney Dance Company and Quantum Leap, while leading workshops, residencies and creative developments across Europe, Asia and Australia. Working across diverse cultural contexts has reinforced his belief that artistic knowledge is cultivated through sustained relationships, generous exchange and long-term dialogue. These ongoing collaborations continue to shape both his creative process and the communities within which his work is made.
