bio
shannon gillen is an international movement creative exploring human behavior, identity, dance theater methodologies, and communication through conceptual frameworks, choreographic direction, and interdisciplinary collaborative research projects.
her practice merges movement, theater, sound and environment into live performance experiences, immersive installations and screen-based works, foregrounding humanity's need for social connection and physical expression in both live performance and daily life.
gillen has coalesced her approach to tethering her creative work with her ongoing pedagogical research by inviting professionals and pre-professionals alike into spaces where they can explore their totality: embodiment, listening, strategy and bridge building, relational expression, limit testing, personal architectural activation, emotional resonance, open communication, and limitless imagination.
we learn by doing.
we are through action.
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My passion lies in the intersection of meaning creation and human behavior. With a background in contemporary movement practices and a love for theater, I build worlds that delve into how we communicate, exploring how we manifest, embody, and connect with the world. dance theater as a practice becomes a vessel for enlivening the scale of human life, with bodies in the action of daily, virtuosic, surreal and conceptual sharing the stories of existence.
Live performance and all pedagogical experience stirs curiosity, collaboration, innovation and the transformational capacity of the body. We learn that we exist only in to relation to others and the world. This, along with making contact with the unexpected, is a way of working that I bring to every project.
COMING UP
b12 Festival * IAB Institute of the Arts Barcelona * ZAGREB DANCE COMPANY * LUZ - SITGES * Elon University * The University of Michigan * The University of Limerick *
FOUNDATION
MFA, DANCE
NYU Tisch School of the Arts
BFA, DANCE
The Juilliard School
Shannon Gillen is the artistic director of VIM VIGOR (US). Her creative work has been commissioned across the USA, Canada, Central America, South America and Europe. Projects include commissions by L.A. Dance Project, dance.films for BAM, NY Fashion Week, Danceworks at the Lobero Theatre, Gibney Dance Company, Zagreb Dance Company, Hubbard Street 2, Resilience Dance, over het lj in (NL), Jacob's Pillow Festival, Boston Dance Theater at the ICA in Boston, Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, b12 Festival at dock 11, (DE) Ruvuelo (Chile), Mainfranken Theater Würzburg (DE), Arts Umbrella (CA), the International Solo-Tanz Theater Festival in Stuttgart (DE), the TIF theater in Kassel (DE), de dansers (NL), as a think big choreographer-in-residence at Staatsoper Hannover (DE) and at Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton where she was a choreographer in residence; notable festivals and venues where her work has been seen include Springboard Danse festival in Montreal, New York Live Arts, Prisma Festival in Panama, Judson Church, PULSE art fair/Art Basel, Bryant Park, NYC's River to River festival, Perry Mansfield, and The Joyce. Gillen's recent commissions include the IUA in Reykjavik, Iceland, the b12 Festival in Berlin, the Institute of the Arts Barcelona (ES), Michigan Movement Performance Projects (M2P2), Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center for Gibney Presents in NYC, and the Arthur Miller Theatre (USA). In 2026, she will create a new work with Zagreb Dance Company in Croatia that will tour in Europe, LUZ / SITGES in Spain, and MAVERICKS for b12 in Berlin. In 2027 will create new works for The University of Limerick in Ireland and for the Power Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Gillen is an Associate Professor of Dance at U-M. She is a graduate of The Juilliard School and earned her MFA from Tisch School of the Arts, NYU.
TOOLKIT
Direction
Choreography
Contemporary Practices
Dance Theater Methodologies
Immersive Theater
Site Specific Installations
Festival and Platform Curation
Mentorship and Creative Strategy