Lori Teague: Emory Dance Company Choreographer Fall 2021

Raven Crosby, Office Assistant 

Personal connections, discomfort, division, and harmony are elements that Lori Teague is exploring in her piece for the Emory Dance Company this fall. Teague is looking to explore a set of questions that relate to discomfort felt in bodies. “I continue to ask myself, 'how do I live in my body?' and 'how do I, or we, survive a moment?'” Teague states that these questions have personal answers and are serving as overarching questions for her cast to explore. “I am facilitating ways that we will create important connections to each other, and to the planet in the work.”

Teague’s choreographic process begins with developing a movement vocabulary with the cast in tandem with the themes that she is exploring. Working with her cast while following safety protocols due to the pandemic has shifted Teague’s choreographic ideas to be communicated in other creative ways. After a brief conversation early in the movement process about touch within the piece, Teague is letting the dancers make the decisions themselves and with their peers about how to explore movements. “I respect the boundaries and fears we all have right now.”

For this piece, technical elements are important in setting the tone. Teague is using the music that she selects to create an emotional, qualitative environment for the work. “This time I am exploring a score that is in contrast to the movement at times. How do we coexist with our environment right now? How do we engage within it? This reflects the challenges we are experiencing, but also the recuperative spaces in nature that allow us to rebound.” She is also collaborating with Greg Catellier, who is the lighting designer for the Emory Dance Program, to create a visual representation of space that communicates division and harmony.

Teague hopes her piece will communicate “the idea that we survive many moments because of our connections to each other. I am using the compositional device of cannon to communicate this empathy. Movement echoes from one body to another.”