choreography
Videos available upon request.
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2023
There's Only One Bed. A thirty-minute duet in collaboration with Benny Olk investigating the love letters from John Cage to Merce Cunningham. Both an homage to both high- and low-brow queer aesthetics and a process of historic fabulation, this work offers a playful collision between esoteric dance forms, popular culture, and devotion. Presented by SPACE, Portland, ME.
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Truly Madly Deeply. A thirty-minute trio that continues Koepke's research into queer hauntology, memory, and displaced physio- temporalities. Presented by SPACE, Portland, ME.
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TMDTMI. A fifteen-minute trio navigating iteration, ghost stories, and tightly-woven choreographic structures for small spaces. Presented by Bates College, Martin Andrucki Black Box Theater.
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2022
Moods. A fifteen-minute performance for a cast of fourteen. The work is a wilderness of camp and confusion, as the performers practice psychological gesture as a means to discrupt fixed meaning. Presented in Plavin Dance Concert, Bates College, Lewiston, ME.
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In Three. A five-minute performance for a cast of three. Each performer is given three distinct scores while the group attends to a series of three global compositional tactics and concerns. Composition emerges through spontaneous somatic improvisations and choreographic interventions. Presented in Experimental Dance Series, University of Maryland, College Park.
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Finally, Fairies!. A thirty-five minute performance for a cast of six. The work included an original sound score, a scenic landscape integrated with lighting, media, and costume designs, and archive footage. Presented at the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of my MFA in Dance.
Left: Tristan Koepke in Impasse
Right: Hana Huie and Gabi Woska in Cruel Spiral: Sports Edition
2021
Triple Helix. A ten-minute performance co-directed with Carlo Antonio Villanueva and Andrés Poch. A cast of ten performers variously engage emergent composition through somatic improvisations and live-media augmentation with lights, cameras, projection, and a spontaneous soundscore. Presented in Fall Dance Concert, University of Maryland, College Park.
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Impasse. An eighteen-minute performance and film exploring and challenging capacities for resisting, or at least slowing, capitalism’s saturating effects through both the pursuit and interruption of sensual pleasure. 1 dancer. Presented in Body Politics: Corporeality in Performance seminar with Melissa Blanco Borelli, University of Maryland, College Park, streamed virtually.
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Cruel Spiral: Sports Edition. A seven-minute film exposing color, texture, and incessant repetition of action. 2 dancers. Presented in The School of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies's Spring Dance Concert, University of Maryland, College Park, streamed virtually.
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ghosted2. An eight-minute film, a wrestling match, a practice in patience, and a hardwired journey through failure and frustration. Presented in Body Politics: Corporeality in Performance seminar with Melissa Blanco Borelli, University of Maryland, College Park, streamed virtually.
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if slow pizza were a dance only it's not. A seven-minute film condensing a two-hour absurdist repetition of character and rhythm. 1 dancer. Presented in The School of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies's Spring Dance Concert, University of Maryland, College Park, streamed virtually.
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The Poisoned Solo. A ten-minute dance film which meditates on hauntology and loneliness swirls and cycles through reminiscence and resistance. 1 dancer. Presented through freeskewl's On The House, streamed virtually.
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Climb. A seven-minute dance film created remotely created for and with the teens of Portland Youth Dance. 24 dancers. Presented by Portland Youth Dance in Portland, ME, streamed virtually.
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Long Division. A seven minute dance exploring accumulation and persistent layering. 3 dancers. Presented in The School of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies's Shared Graduate Concert, University of Maryland, College Park, cancelled due to COVID-19.
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Left: Tristan Koepke in Beverly, Beverly, Beverly
Right: Tristan Koepke in if slow pizza were a dance only it's not
2020
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Beverly, Beverly, Beverly. An inquiry into the process and ethics of translating oral history into dance in the age of physical distance. A somatic collage of family history, rich homages to the past, unsettled queer orientation, and the epigenetic legacies labor, trauma, and grief.
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I AM IN A BASEMENT. A twenty-four minute performance and film reflecting on creative projects on pause. Small accumulations of memory, emergence, and iteration, connecting across vast distances to echoes of collaboration. 1 dancer. Presented in The School of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies's Spring Dance Concert, University of Maryland, College Park, streamed virtually.
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Speaking Terms. a duet of collision and compromise with dance artist Maggie Zepp. Two dancers. Presented by Point Dance Ensemble in Stevens Point, WI.
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What's In It For Me?. An eight-minute dance mining empathetic process and teenage angst. Twelve dancers. Presented by Point Dance Ensemble in Stevens Point, WI.
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2019
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Hana with Gabi by Tristan. An inquiry into expanse, amplification, cruel spirals, and the pleasures of partnership, distance, and catastrophe.
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Left: Tristan Koepke and Maggie Zepp in Speaking Terms
Right: Portland Youth Dance in Highlighter
2017
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Highlighter, an eight-minute playful romp questioning, place, space, and indoctrination into American exceptionalism. 11 dancers. Presented by Portland Youth Dance in Portland, ME.
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2012
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Hansel Pinches, a five-minute dance of queer loneliness and celebratory smut. 1 dancer. Presented by Hiponymous in Minneapolis, MN.
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2010
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Noshguzzler, a one-hour installation exploring religious iconography and excessive consumption. 5 dancers. Presented by 1419 Collective in Minneapolis, MN
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Sissies, a six-minute performance incorporating absurdist directives of gender expression. 2 dancers. Presented by Point Dance Ensemble in Stevens Point, WI.
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Filthy Habits, a ten-minute performance featuring baby minimalist gesture, baby doll limbs, and grotesque imagery. Presented by 9x22 at Bryant Lake Bowl Theater in Minneapolis, MN.
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2009
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Bears, a ten-minute performance featuring a grand staircase entrance. Presented by Patrick's Cabaret in Minneapolis, MN.