Kristin Marrs, MFA, M.AmSAT, is a choreographer, performer, and teacher as an Associate Professor of Instruction at the University of Iowa Department of Dance. Her research and teaching interests include the integration of somatic practices with ballet pedagogy, and she has presented her research at CORPS, Dance Studies Association, and published in the Journal of Undergraduate Teaching and Learning Practice. Marrs is a certified Alexander Technique teacher with the American Society for the Alexander Technique and a Functional Awareness® Movement Educator. She is a founding member of Alexander Technique Iowa, an online community of Alexander teachers and students in the Hawkeye State.

Marrs’s choreography explores the evolution of ballet as a technique, narrative form, and performance practice. Collaborative works include When Trees Say Nothing, created with paper and fiber artist Mary Merkel-Hess, and Intersecting Lines, a dance film created with dance artist/filmmaker Alex Bush and oboist Courtney Miller. Her choreography was featured in the world premiere of composer Jacob Bancks’ opera Karkinos, a collaboration with the Living Proof Exhibit, an organization that provides arts experiences for cancer survivors.

Marrs trained at SUNY Purchase and London Studio Centre and holds an MFA in Dance from the University of Iowa. Prior to finding her home as a liberal arts educator, Marrs performed as a company member of Columbus Dance Theatre, Ballet Quad Cities, Northern Ballet Theatre, Arova Contemporary Ballet, Paradise Ballet Theatre, Opera Columbus, and Images of Dance (London).