Julian Barnett, Fall 12 Rep Choreographer

Julian Barnett creates dances about people.

Julian Barnett is a choreographer, performer, musician and teacher. He was born in Tokyo, Japan, grew up in Oakland, California, lives in New York City, and works regularly in Europe and Asia. During his childhood, Julian dived into street dancing and hip-hop and thus discovered his initial curiosity of improvisation. He attended the Idyllwild Arts Academy and later studied dance, music and film at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, receiving his BFA. In 2012, he completed his MA at the ArtEZ Master of Choreography program (formerly EDDC, European Dance Development Center) in Arnhem, Netherlands.

Julian has received critical acclaim for his growing body of work and his works have been invited throughout North America, Europe and Asia. He is the recipient of several choreographic residencies and awards including Joyce SoHo New York, K3 in Hamburg, Springboard Danse in Montreal, Dance Ireland in Dublin and the danceWEB Scholarship for the Impulstanz Festival in Vienna.

Julian's first work FLOAT, originally premiered at the La Mama Theater in New York and was acquired by the repertory company Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and performed internationally. The piece was also performed by HS II, the Juilliard School, and several other universities around the US. Since FLOAT, Julian has focused on longer experimental works, creating the evening-length SUPER NATURAL, which premiered at Dance New Amsterdam and SOUND MEMORY, which premiered at Danspace Project and later highlighted as one of the “Best Dances of 2009” by Time Out New York Magazine. Julian's solo works have also been a strong vehicle for his choreographic adventures, most notably THE CLEAN STATE, which was a finalist in the Sadler’s Wells Global Dance Contest in London and ECHOLOGUE which performed in New York, Montreal, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

Julian performed in the duet SHIFT, by Johannes Wieland (Staatstheater Kassel), which won the Kurt Jooss Award in 2004 and performed alongside Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater. Since then, he has had the privilege of collaborating with other inspiring artists such as Wally Cardona, Larry Keigwin, Doug Elkins, Lar Lubovitch, Doug Varone with Metropolitan Opera and John Scott with Irish Modern Dance Theater.

As a teacher, Julian has taught master classes at numerous universities and international conservatories and continues to develop his personal perspective on technique, composition and improvisation practices.

Julian's current choreographic research is based on a profound curiousity into new modes of sound perception, cultivation of live music within choreographic contexts and when singing acts as the agent for choreography.

P R E S S

"The program’s black sheep — in a breath-of-fresh-air sense — was Mr. Barnett, whose compelling 2009 solo “Echologue” involved a recorder, a microphone and a pair of boots; the boots remained untouched on the stage for the duration. It was an oddly funny detail in an austere work that explored the notion of repercussions. ..."Echologue” was something of a rabbit hole. As Mr. Barnett delved deeper into his material, the sounds and movement became one. In the enveloping darkness, Mr. Barnett shed some of his clothing and laid it on the floor, creating a replication of himself: the ultimate echo."
-New York Times
Full review

"Mr. Barnett doesn’t achieve transcendence in “Super Natural,” but he does something almost better. He shows us just how hard, almost impossible, that achievement is and how it is the idea that keeps dancers pushing through impossibly exhausting, emotionally draining work...the rest, which sets Mr. Barnett, Phina Pipia, Justin Ternullo and Jocelyn Tobias — all terrific — in fierce, whiplashing, shoulder-angled, leg-circling sequences, is mesmerizing stuff. Despite its loose, flung-about quality, the movement possesses a consistent tension in the way Mr. Barnett sets body parts in awkward opposition: shoulders constantly turn inward, legs go back when you think they’ll go forward, waists crunch sideways, heads loll as the rest of the body cracks through a phrase.

At times Mr. Barnett builds these phrases into full-body frenzy, then quietens them into barely perceptible physical murmurs. These moments are marvelous; so is the way he suddenly coheres these apparently random flailing movements into synchronized duos or quartets. Transcendence may not be achieved, but “Super Natural” shows us the hard, hard way toward it."
- New York Times
Full review

"Best Dance of 2009. At Danspace Project, Sound Memory was a happy surprise: a rigorous work for three dancers that started with the notion of a mixtape—as in, the now-ancient audiocassette. It created an evocative world of dance theater about memory and imagination."
- Time Out New York
Full article

"Judging by his accomplished new dance, “Sound Memory,” Julian Barnett was once an obsessive maker of mix tapes. He does more than scratch the surface of sound and memory before the age of digitization. Mr. Barnett has found a reason not just to dance, but also to make dances, and in doing so he’s cultivated a potent sound memory for the present."
- New York Times