Charlotte Griffin
Founder and Artistic Director
Charlotte Griffin is a dance maker interested in the vulnerability and power of the human form in live performance and digitally rich environments. In 2020, she founded milkleaf, a dance laboratory and production company, to make and support meaningful contributions to a global landscape of movement expression, artistic collaboration, and community engagement.
Her dances place unadorned natural forms and everyday gestures in concert with sublime virtuosity to capture the fleeting and enduring nature of the human experience across a broad aesthetic and technological field. The Cambrians, American Dance Festival, The Juilliard School, The Hartt School Dance Division, BJM Danse in Montreal, Danza UDLAP, Barcelona Institut del Teatre, Princeton University, Rutgers University, and more have commissioned her concert repertory. She created ballets for The University of North Carolina School of the Arts Choreographic Institute, The New York Choreographic Institute with the New York City Ballet and School of American Ballet, at the American Ballet Theatre Summer Intensive in Austin, and for Eliot Feld's Ballet Tech Kids Dance. She has been a guest artist at ArcDanz, Lux Boreal, Springboard Danse Montreal, Korea National University of Arts, The Yard, Cayman Island Arts Festival, the Bates Dance Festival, and more. Her award-winning dance films, Perhaps I was T/Here? (2018), Barefoot Negotiations (2009) and Raven Study (2007), have screened internationally and have influenced her continued research of choreo-cinematic form.
As a young dancer, Charlotte earned her BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School under the direction of Mr. Benjamin Harkarvy and was honored with The Martha Hill Award for excellence in her field of study. She collaborated and performed in projects with David Neumann, Yasmeen Godder, Sue Bernhard, Toshiko Oiwa, Karen Graham, Robert Battle, and Larry Keigwin with an emphasis on dance-theater. Charlotte holds an MFA from UT Austin and currently studies Taoist Qigong forms, primarily Xiantianwujimen (Primordial Limitless Gate) with Dr. Eva Wong. In 2015, she joined the University of California, Irvine, Dance Department, where her approach to modern technique, composition, and screendance embraces her eclecticism. Charlotte aims to generate nourishing and empowering artistic praxis for the next generation of dancers.
Her dances place unadorned natural forms and everyday gestures in concert with sublime virtuosity to capture the fleeting and enduring nature of the human experience across a broad aesthetic and technological field. The Cambrians, American Dance Festival, The Juilliard School, The Hartt School Dance Division, BJM Danse in Montreal, Danza UDLAP, Barcelona Institut del Teatre, Princeton University, Rutgers University, and more have commissioned her concert repertory. She created ballets for The University of North Carolina School of the Arts Choreographic Institute, The New York Choreographic Institute with the New York City Ballet and School of American Ballet, at the American Ballet Theatre Summer Intensive in Austin, and for Eliot Feld's Ballet Tech Kids Dance. She has been a guest artist at ArcDanz, Lux Boreal, Springboard Danse Montreal, Korea National University of Arts, The Yard, Cayman Island Arts Festival, the Bates Dance Festival, and more. Her award-winning dance films, Perhaps I was T/Here? (2018), Barefoot Negotiations (2009) and Raven Study (2007), have screened internationally and have influenced her continued research of choreo-cinematic form.
As a young dancer, Charlotte earned her BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School under the direction of Mr. Benjamin Harkarvy and was honored with The Martha Hill Award for excellence in her field of study. She collaborated and performed in projects with David Neumann, Yasmeen Godder, Sue Bernhard, Toshiko Oiwa, Karen Graham, Robert Battle, and Larry Keigwin with an emphasis on dance-theater. Charlotte holds an MFA from UT Austin and currently studies Taoist Qigong forms, primarily Xiantianwujimen (Primordial Limitless Gate) with Dr. Eva Wong. In 2015, she joined the University of California, Irvine, Dance Department, where her approach to modern technique, composition, and screendance embraces her eclecticism. Charlotte aims to generate nourishing and empowering artistic praxis for the next generation of dancers.