My name is James Batchelor, I am a Choreographer and Dancer from Australia. I am now in Berlin, working and living between Australia and Europe. My practice spans researching, creating and performing dance as well as being engaged in youth and community work. I am really interested in the infinitely expansive ways the body and dance can probe indescribable phenomena, particularly in the slower, softer and smaller experiences of movement. I love thinking about moving through the ‘thickness’ of space and its invisible microscopic contents, making connections to the alien or unknown and exploring body-memory as an archive.  

I grew up on Ngunnawal country (Canberra) and came to contemporary dance through the youth company Quantum Leap when I was 8 years old. I really felt at at home in this context of creating and forming language with movement and have been hooked on dance since then, continuing to study a Bachelor of Dance at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne. Somehow I remember imagining that I would emerge from this training as a ‘perfect dancer’, ready to start my career. But although I am certainly grateful for what my teachers taught me, I still had no sense of how deep that ocean was or what my path  through it could be. Looking at what was already existing around me was disappointing, attempts at emulating or fitting into the path of others didn’t produce very interesting results.

The advice I would give to myself at that time would be to have confidence in following those impulses that felt alien or uncertain, to be critical and curious but also to let go and not be too serious. Find joy and humour in what you do and learn how to fuck it up and have fun with it. Party more. Be brave enough to let go of the extraneous and embrace the tiny invisible efforts that don’t feel like they will be enough. 

Several years later I found myself on a ship with scientists mapping one of the most remote regions of the Earth, still curious about that ocean and its mysterious contents…  Curious about Antarctica. How could I have possibly imagined spending two months dancing in such a wild and precarious environment? It was terrifying and it changed me. Not long after this I decided to spend a week living on the streets of Melbourne, to feel the concrete landscape in my body and the residual motion of the city. It was again an extremely confronting and dangerous experience, probably a terrible idea to be honest and something I don’t talk about in my bio, or show on my website for example. 

Another thing you don’t see in my bio is how many times I was rejected for a job I applied for, whether it be a residency, grant or some other opportunity. I’m definitely lucky to have had a lot of support along the way and recognise my privilege, but rejection is still a bitch. I can’t honestly count how many times I’ve felt so crushed by it and not sure where to pull the strength from to continue applying for things. It all feels so arbitrary sometimes. But I continue to believe that things seem to work out in the end, sometimes I need that prompt to take a different path. 

You can’t do it alone. I am a hopeless introvert by nature, so I am deeply appreciative of the relationships and collaborations I have made along the way. Who are the people around you that inspire you? Who can help you and who can you help? Combine forces, pool resources and share knowledge. One thing I hope will come from 2020 is that we can completely re-imagine the systems that we are living and working in. It’s a big one I know… But dance is one thing that could actually do this.