Claire Hancock is a choreographer, dancer, and actor whose work focuses on the intersection of abstract forms and narratives. Many of her original works tell old stories in new ways through conventional and unconventional venues, immersive audience experiences, and on film/new media.
She holds a Master of Arts degree in European Dance Theatre from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London, England, and earned both a Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts degree in dance from the University of Arizona. Claire danced professionally with ODC/San Francisco and River North Dance Company in Chicago. Additional featured solo performances include those with Broadway veterans Ben Vereen and Liz Callaway. Her professional career is underpinned by the somatics education she received through the Joseph and Clara Pilates’ “Body Contrology” system, via the lineage of Ron Fletcher. She has been a Nationally Certified Pilates Teacher and Qualified Fletcher Pilates® teacher since 2010.
Hancock has been a guest teacher and choreographer for organizations including the Limón Institute, Broadway Theatre Project, San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, University of Arizona School of Dance, Arizona Theatre Company, Arizona Opera, Tucson Symphony Orchestra, True Concord: Voices and Orchestra, The Rogue Theatre, The Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre, and Broadway in Tucson. She has served as rehearsal assistant for Ben Stevenson’s Three Preludes and End of Time, as well as George Balanchine’s Serenade and The Four Temperaments, reporting to Leslie Peck and Elyse Borne, repetiteurs for the Balanchine Trust. Claire is a repetiteur for several of the late choreographer David Berkey’s works including his signature piece, Sentinel, which she has staged for Vassar College in New York, the New Mexico Dance Institute, and the University of Arizona School of Dance.
In 2009, Hancock co-founded and directed Artifact Dance Project in Tucson, AZ with colleague Ashley Bowman, a professional dance company dedicated to dance, live music, and film. The company cultivated over 50 collaborations, premiered over 100 new works, and had two successful tours of Asia. The project opened Artifact Dance Project Studios in Tucson’s warehouse district, which housed the company and provided a full curriculum of dance classes for the community as well as an annual international summer workshop for dance and music collaboration.
Recently Hancock has been developing and creating work with composer Vincent Calianno for a new company, Two Trains, which focuses on producing works for new media and the stage. Their next project, A History of the String Quartet in its Natural Habitat, is for both stage and screen and features musicians and dancers. Other projects include L’ASTRONOME, an opera in nine parts, which is currently in progress. Hancock was recently a guest lecturer with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra’s Young Composers Project, and with Calianno is building a bridge between the two organizations to foster young composers and choreographers in the Tucson community.