Tristan Koepke
bio
Tristan Koepke (he/him) is a dancer, educator, choreographer, and Rolfer® based between Lewiston, ME and St. Paul, MN. His performance credits are extensive, having performed with repertory-based Zenon Dance Company in Minneapolis from 2011-2019. His past performance credits include Chris Schlichting, Vanessa Anspaugh, Portland Ballet, Doug Varone and Dancers, luciana achugar, Cally Spooner, BANDportier, Morgan Thorson, PearsonWidrig DanceTheater, Christina Robson, elephantJANE dance, Patrick Scully, ARENA Dances, Time Track Productions, the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and The Minnesota Opera.
His choreographic works range from short movement investigations for the camera to fully-produced dance works for the stage. Recent commissions include Point Dance Ensemble (We Are Counting on You, 2020) and Portland Youth Dance (Highlighter, 2018). His recent works, I AM IN A BASEMENT (2020), Beverly, Beverly, Beverly (2020), The Poisoned Solo (2021), Finally, Fairies! (2022) are performative inquiries into loneliness, hauntology, semiotic ambivalence, and the pleasures and terrors of belonging, partnership, distance, and catastrophe.
A founding member of Structural Integrators for Liberation Somatics, he is passionate about cultivating inclusive spaces that promote holistic wellness and somatic practices. A Board-Certified Structural Integrator™, he has been a member of the International Association of Structural Integrators since 2016, and the National Dance Educators Association since 2018. He holds a certificate in Rolfing® Structural Integration from the Dr. Ida Rolf Institute®, where he serves as Chair of the Committee on Diversity and Anti-racism. I sat on the Certification Board of Structural Integration from 2020-2022, where he served as the Ethics Chair. In addition, he holds a BA in Dance from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities as well as a Certificate in Yoga Instruction from CorePower Yoga, and has studied many somatic practices, such as Klein Technique™, Alexander Technique, and SpiralDynamik®.
He is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Bates College, as well as the Associate Director of the Young Dancers Workshop at the Bates Dance Festival. He holds an MFA in Dance at the University of Maryland, College Park. His current areas of research include somatic phenomenology in dance performance, hauntology and semio-capitalism, historicizing bodies and somatic practices within multidisciplinary fields of inquiry, and situating liberation work within the fields of dance and somatic education.
