Julio Medina: From Graduate to Faculty

Julio Medina: From Graduate to Faculty

By Raven Crosby, Emory Dance Program Office Assistant

Note: Julio Medina’s quotes have been incorporated into this story and have been edited for length and clarity.

I recently had the opportunity to interview the Emory Dance Program’s newest faculty member, Assistant Professor of Dance Julio Medina. Medina is an Emory alum who graduated in 2013 with majors in dance and anthropology and continued on to obtain an MFA at UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance in 2016. Medina is currently a member of David Rousseve|REALITY, a dance company created by David Rousseve and based in Los Angeles. He has also showcased his work “I Gotta” at CONDERDance Festival 2018, the American Dance Festival Alumni Weekend Concert 2018, and the Dance Studies Association 2018 Conference at the University of Malta in Valletta, Malta.

Medina began his teaching career at Cal State Long Beach. When I asked Medina how it felt to return to his alma mater, he replied “It feels fantastic to return to Emory as a full-time professor. It also feels quite surreal. I cannot believe it, but it also feels meant to be. I love that I do not have to worry about where things are or who people are; it’s like I have a deeper understanding of Emory as a place, its history, and memory.” Since Medina is a graduate of the Emory Dance Program, returning to this program in a new position presented no difficulties. Medina described the transition in terms of his relationship to his former professors as follows: “I love that I get to work with my previous professors as colleagues now. They still remain mentors to me, each and every one, but now they are mentoring me as a peer and not as a pupil.” 

When it comes to choreographing works, Medina described his inspiration for movement as follows: “My greatest inspirations flow mainly from two main streams: my life experiences and music. Normally I am moved by the transformations I am undergoing as a human being (loss, vulnerability, empowerment, a sense of community) or I will listen to a song over and over again, sometimes for years until the vision is finally physicalized.” He believes that “Not every piece has a deeper meaning. Some do, and some just are.” Medina said that this ideology can be seen in his upcoming Emory Dance Company piece that he is currently in the process of choreographing. 

Medina’s Emory Dance Company piece will debut on November 21-23. When asked what the audience can expect to see, Medina stated “The audience can expect to see a piece that has no visible storyline or through-line. They can expect to see a group of dancers on stage playing and working with each other, responding to the music and molding elements of time and energy with their movement/personalities. In that sense, it is more of a movement composition than a story.” In terms of Medina’s movement quality, he believes that it can be described as “an amalgamation of skills and movement practices.” He goes on to state that “[The movement] is sort of round yet angular, driven by the clashes of flow and strength.” Medina tends to combine elements from his hip-hop, modern, and ballet training, alongside humor. 

In addition to Medina’s Emory Dance Company piece, he is also a pioneer in creating the first hip-hop course offered by the Emory Dance Program. Since he was an undergraduate student, Medina has strived to implement hip-hop techniques into the curriculum of dance programs. The first institution in which he created a hip-hop technique course was at California State University--Long Beach and now he has transferred this curriculum to Emory University. Medina sees the benefit of having hip-hop taught in the program because of his own personal training, in which he noticed “...these movement practices made me draw so many connections about how the body can move. I wanted to share this opportunity with others.”