about amy

Amy Chavasse, a Professor in the Department of Dance is choreographer, performer, educator, improviser, and Artistic Director of ChavasseDance&Performance. In September 2022, a duet, Plunder Thunder, with Stephanie Gennusa and Rowan Janusiak was presented at The New International Dance Festival in Daejeon, and The Goyang International Dance Festival in Goyang, South Korea. She taught several workshops at Kyunghee University in Goyang, and Chungnam University in Daejon.  In June, she presented, How to Stay in a Dream with the Compañía Nacional de Danza de Costa Rica in San José, Costa Rica, with dance artists from Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and Brooklyn, NY. This was the culmination of a year long (pandemic) creation project with Luciana Acuña, Luis Biasotto of Grupo Krapp, Buenos Aires, Austin Selden, Sarah Konner, Nola Sporn Smith and Paty Lorena Solórzano. In 2019, the first (pre-pandemic) iteration of Plunder Thunder with Nicole Reehorst and Emily Soong, premiered at the Detroit Dance City Festival, followed by performances at 201Urban Spaces Shanghai Festival from October 3-9, at The Shanghai Tower. She also offered master classes at The Shanghai International Dance Center, and The Children’s Palace in Shanghai. Her work has also been presented at Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out, Links Hall, Chicago, The Dance Complex-(Boston), Movement Research at Judson Church, Dance New Amsterdam, Triskeleon, (New York) and other venues. Internationally, she has taught and her work has been presented in Uppsala, Sweden, Cuba, Lithuania, Vienna, Colombia, Vancouver BC, Buenos Aires, the American Dance Festival/ Henan (China) and The Beijing Dance Festival. She premiered Low Winter Light, a duet for Donnell Oakley and Jessica Jolly at The Beijing Dance Festival in 2013. She has taught at Duncan 3.0 in Rome, at ProDanza Italia from 2007- 2013, and at ResExtensa’s Instituto Vittoria in  Giovinazzo, Italy. She is in an ongoing collaboration for a project called Calling the Goddess with Shanghai based vocalist/ choreographer/ performer, Jay Peng Zhang that premiered in Uppsala, Sweden, followed by performances in Brooklyn NY, and Ann Arbor. Other recent projects include Manicula is a Revolver, a collaboration with Beth Graczyk, Sarah Konner and Austin Selden. She presented improvisation workshops at the International Society of Improvised Music in Chateaux D’Oex, Switzerland in June 2015, and an alternative movement presentation at The University of Valetta, Malta as part of the Dance Studies Association conference in 2018. She has taught at and collaborated with members of Tanz Tangente in Berlin in 2015 and 2016, worked with members of  ResExtensa Danza Teatro Danza in Bari, Italy from 2009-2014. Frequent collaborators include, Sarah Konner, Xan Burley, Alex Springer, Austin Selden, Peter Schmitz, Lisa Gonzalez, Beth Graczyk, Donnell Oakley, Jessica Jolly, Aidan Feldman, Malcolm Tulip and others. Amy danced with Laura Dean Dancers & Musicians, Colleen Thomas and Bill Young dancers, and in many independent dance and theater projects across the U.S. and internationally. She teaches Performance Practices, Improvisation, Composition, Repertory, Physical Practice, Creative Process and devotes considerable time to mentoring student projects in the Department of Dance and beyond. With Catherine Coury, she launched the first Department of Dance Study Abroad program in Seville, Spain in 2019.She collaborates with students and faculty across the School of Music Theatre & Dance, and across the university, including heading a multi-year research project for Faculty Engineering / Arts Student Teams sponsored by Arts Engine. She is an active contributor to many organizations, committees and initiatives. In 2022 she received a Faculty Recognition Award, and the Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship.

Touring throughout the US in 2015-16 with Sola, Dances by and for Women, she performed a solo Conspiracy Going, Amy Needs A Lot of Empathy, prompted Melanie Wiesen of theTampa Art Breaker to write: “The most polarizing of the six pieces, Amy Chavasse’s (University of Michigan) “Conspiracy Going,” seemed to be a rejection of the easy, digestible portrayal of contemporary dance on television. A mix of spoken word and dance, Chavasse, with no musical accompaniment, performed the intensely personal piece with incredible athleticism and passion. Her verbal commentary on sadism and authority, matched by her powerful and aggressive physicality, was the most provocative piece of art I have seen in the past year.” She presented improvisation workshops at the International Society of Improvised Music in Chateaux D’Oex, Switzerland in June 2015, and an alternative movement presentation at The University of Valetta, Malta as part of the Dance Studies Association conference in 2018. She has taught at and collaborated with members of Tanz Tangente in Berlin in 2015 and 2016, worked with members of ResExtensa Danza Teatro Danza in Bari, Italy from 2009-2014, and is planning a new project for summer and fall 2020 with Grupo Krapp, (Buenos Aires). She was a guest teacher at The American Dance Festival’s WFFS series from 2014-2018.

Her work questions a broad range of incendiary topics, wrestles with assumptions about performance and representation, seeks to examine barriers and boundaries— both real and imaginary, and traverses pathways and processes that are vivid, brazen and sensuous. She has had the pleasure of collaborating with many ground breaking artists and makers, including Sarah Konner, Xan Burley, Alex Springer, Austin Selden, Peter Schmitz, Lisa Gonzalez, Beth Graczyk, Donnell Oakley, Jessica Jolly, Aidan Feldman, Malcolm Tulip and others. “Amy Chavasse is a continual surprise, solo or ensemble. Her dances are simultaneously absurd, smart and disturbing, and she chooses her collaborators well.” (Quinn Batson- OffOffOff).

She danced in the companies of Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians and in many independent projects in NYC and beyond. BFA- University of NC School of the Arts; MFA- University of Washington.