Joe Moran (he/him) is a British-Irish artist and choreographer based in London with a wide-ranging practice incorporating performance, critical writing, drawing, curation, advocacy and film. His work centres the body and embodied presence as a site of complex subjectivities and political unrest with queering frequently deployed as its principal critical strategy. Joe’s work is informed by a background in improvisation and experimentation, and a fascination with the problems and opportunities of formal choreographic composition and notions of expanded choreography. He works extensively in galleries and visual art contexts, as well as making works for the stage and film.
Joe is currently developing an extended live iteration of his film Materiality Will Be Rethought commissioned by Whitechapel Gallery – first performances were presented at Le Musée Transitoire, Paris (Nov 2023). Recent choreographic works include the exhibition Its contours, Its movements, part of Fest en Fest festival of expanded choreography (2022), the film Materiality Will Be Rethought (2020) presented at Rencontres Internationales, Paris, Haus der Kulturen der Wel, Berlin and Mexico City International Video Dance Festival, where it was awarded the Best Choreography Prize (2022), and Arrangement at Tanzfestival Winterthur (2022), Tanzhaus NRW, Dusseldorf (Tanzmesse 2022), Tanzwerkstatt Europa, Munich (2022) and Sadler’s Wells (2019). Other recent performances include Nottingham Contemporary (NottDance festival, 2019), TantsuRUUM, Talinn (2019), Wysing Arts Centre (2018), Bluecoat (2018) coinciding with the Liverpool Biennial and Kettle’s Yard (2018) in collaboration with sculptor Eva Rothschild.
Joe has worked internationally as a dancer with choreographers Deborah Hay (USA), Florence Peake (UK), Siobhan Davies (UK, Bank project), Christopher House (Canada) and Stina Nyberg (Sweden) among others. His adaptation of Deborah Hay’s solo At Once, and lecture-performance on the work, toured widely in the UK and internationally. Notable collaborations include with visual artists Eva Rothschild, Carlos Bunga and Magali Reus, composer Kaffe Matthews and dancers Temitope Ajose and Andrew Hardwidge.