agenda
Works
Notes of Self
A solo in many voices: Notes of Self is an intimate blend of intellect and emotion that opens new pathways to dance for children and adults alike. Playful, surprising, and full of movement, the choreography welcomes young audiences, including those who may never have been to the theater before, while inviting adults into a fresh dialogue with the radical spirit of Ausdruckstanz. Century-old avant-garde tradition meets the spontaneous movements of children and creates a performance that is both historically aware and radically present.
Resonance
Resonance unites three generations of Australian dancers in a moving celebration of memory, connection, and reinvention. At its heart is a conversation between past and present, as Batchelor’s meditative choreographic style engages in a curious dialogue with the legacy of Tanja Liedtke. Featuring an intergenerational cast, including local guest dancers in each city it tours to, Resonance honours the dancer’s body as a living archive. It becomes an intimate act of choreographic transmission – one that celebrates dance as a language of friendship, transformation, and enduring connection.
Event
Event was created in the frame of a shared evening of new works called Everlasting Event from Swedish company Norrdans. In Event, you encounter a sensuous world of looping patterns and oceanic ripples. Ornamented with a hint of the baroque, the dancers find joy in connection, synchronising and falling into rhythm with techno-like beats.
Shortcuts to Familiar Places
Shortcuts to Familiar Places is a personal performance about the body as a site of historical and choreographic inscription. Like a map that is constantly being redrawn and rewritten, the body here goes through endless cycles of transmission and reception. In two duets and a solo, the work explores new artistic ways to embrace the complexity of self-expression in contemporary times – while echoing the free spirit of the expressive dance (Ausdruckstanz) era.
Writing
Passionate Distance
By Alice Heyward
The radicality of Resonance lies in its commitment to remembering what we might not know, grounded in body-to-body processes, and learning. We remember together, knowing that to do so is to move and be moved. It is the act of memory which protects a thing’s, a person’s, a place’s or a moment’s existence and meanings, including life’s innate, collective will toward growth, and therefore change.
Fates Intertwined: Transforming Liedtke's Archive
By James Batchelor
The paths we traverse extend beyond our consciousness. In Resonance (2025) and my previous work Shortcuts to Familiar Places (2022) I have navigated authorship with choreographers no longer with us; Tanja Liedtke (1977-2007) and Gertrud Bodenwieser (1890-1959) respectively. Working from traces, embodied memories and inherited context has been richly generative in my practice.
Teaching
Elastic Terrain: A Mapping Practice
This is a list of instructions for an improvisation practice titled 'Elastic Terrain: A Mapping Practice'. It was originally created as part of the performances Redshift and Hyperspace, but now takes another life as a score that can be practiced by anyone. Included is the written score accompanied by captioned videos.
Expanding Micro Spaces Workshop
Expanding Micro Spaces was an intensive workshop week led by Choreographer James Batchelor at ALTA in Prague. A range of different approaches to touch, gaze and attention explored the potential of the small gesture, by going even smaller and creating a new palette of micro-detailed movement opportunities.