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milkleaf is a multimedia contemporary dance company contributing to the vitality of the arts

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Founder and Artistic Director

Charlotte Griffin is versed in multiple social and concert dance forms, Charlotte’s choreography emphasizes her background in classical modern, post-modern, and contemporary techniques.

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Charlotte Griffin

Founder and Artistic Director

Charlotte Griffin, from Durham, NC, is a California-based contemporary choreographer exploring the fleeting and enduring nature of the human experience in live performance, screendance, and multimedia platforms. In 2020 she founded milkleaf to contribute to the vitality of independent and collaborative dancemaking across a broad aesthetic and technological field.

Versed in multiple social and concert dance forms, Charlotte’s choreography emphasizes her background in classical modern, post-modern, and contemporary techniques. She premiered the ensemble “High Windows” in February 2025 at the Irvine Barclay Theatre and the solo Kindling at the 2023 McCallum Theatre’s Palm Desert Choreography Competition. An avid collaborator, Charlotte recently devised movement for Katherine Behar’s single video channel installation We Grasp at Straws and for the durational performance installation Nevertheless, she persisted (and danced) by Mariángeles Soto-Díaz.

Commissions include 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. She previously 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, the ABT Summer Intensive in Austin, and 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, All of Us (2023), Walls Running (2022), Nostalgia’s Window (2022), Perhaps I was T/Here? (2018), Barefoot Negotiations (2009), and Raven Study (2007), influence her continued exploration of choreo-cinematic form. 
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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. From 2000-2005, she served as Director of Choreography and dancer for the NYC and national/international tours of Kate’s Chink-O-Rama, a cultural satire and musical comedy revue by Kate Rigg with David Jung.

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, with a student-centered approach to modern technique, composition, and screendance. Charlotte aims to generate nourishing and empowering artistic praxis for the next generation of dancer artists.

A woman sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a mirror, practising meditation or yoga. In the background, two women are dancing or wrestling near the mirror.
Group of individuals participating in a dance or exercise activity in a studio, leaning forward with arms extended.
Two people are dancing closely in the foreground while a group of people in the background are stretching or practicing dance moves in a studio.
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