Emory Dance Company: Meet the Program A Choreographers

 

Photo by Lori Teague

The Spring 2025 Emory Dance Company Concert April 16-19 features new work by students in our Choreography II course. Read about the choreographers in Program A, April 16 & 18, below.

Choreographer: Selah Curran-Blakely

About the work: My work delves into the journey of spirituality and the inner conflict we go through with morality, love and lust, and self-growth. Through a fusion of modern, contemporary, and sultry movement styles, combined with jazz, bossa-nova, and alternative music, the piece explores the beauty and tension of spiritual warfare and transformation. 

Choreographer: Gab Crum

About the work: At its core, my work serves as a love letter to the people, the experiences, and the opportunities that have brought me to this chapter of my life. I want people to see and resonate with the love and care woven throughout the work.

Choreographer: Genevieve DeBell

About the work: With my work, I hope to provide a glimpse into the various emotions associated with the work of self-improvement. I hope that the joy, euphoria, destruction, and obsession that are tied to these behaviors are evident through the choreography.  

Choreographer: Deena Goodgold

About the work: I am exploring themes of competition and survival in nature and am exploring mechanisms humans have evolved to survive. I hope to highlight each dancer's individuality and demonstrate the ways each person interacts with another. I want to create a cohesive work that transports the audience into the world of the piece.

Choreographer: Lydia Hamby

About the work: Artistically, I aim to create a piece that fluidly explores the impermanence of relationships while capturing both the tension and beauty in letting go. Through the interplay of music, movement, and dancer interactions, I hope to craft a work that is both visually compelling and emotionally resonant, allowing audiences to engage with the themes of nostalgia, unity, and remembrance.

Choreographer: Brandon Herron 

About the work: I am exploring themes of finding one’s self - that the outcome that everyone desires in life is less important than the journey and appreciating that. We form relationships with so many people throughout our lives; those some closer than others. For those that go, it’s sometimes easy to not understand why they left, but it is important to appreciate that it happened rather than be sad it’s over. 

Thank you choreographers! Tickets for the Emory Dance Company Spring 2025 Concert are on sale now. Click here to purchase yours!

Queer B/being: An Honors Thesis Concert by Ilo Elder

 On March 28 & 29 at 7:30pm, dance major Ilo Elder will present an Honors Thesis Concert entitled Queer B/being. This is a free event and registration is not required. Read below to learn about Ilo's research and creative process. 

Queer B/being is inspired by my research into the liberatory power of Afro-diasporic dance. It takes a deep dive into house dance foundational techniques, namely what I have identified as footwork, groove, rhythm, and freestyle. Similar to how phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics can coalesce to create complex messages, Queer B/being explores how these foundational techniques coalesce to create and recreate a complex being, a queer being. 

This piece has what I like to call a resistant undertone and cosmic overtone. I wanted to create a world where Black bodies can embellish in Black queer aesthetics such as unrepressed sensuality, transformative physicality, and moving from the inside out. The cosmos shines through the costumes, lighting, and soundscape, all inspired by my house club experiences in Chicago. I am very interested in how I can replicate the sensation of being in a trance that house dancers and club patrons tend to experience. 

Since my freshman year, I knew that I wanted to do an honors project; it was just a matter of what it would be about. Before my junior year, I had a revelatory experience at the Bates Dance Festival - my instructor, Duane Lee Holland Jr, sat us down and passionately expressed the importance of Black American Dance, including its perceived threat to Western oppression. As someone trained in multiple Afro-diasporic forms, I had never had someone blatantly point out its resistive power. It felt like a fire was lit within me from a place of pride and critical curiosity. My research narrowed to the technique of house dance and its implications on resistance to Western oppression.

My experience as a researcher and dancer has taught me that there is more beyond the concrete and tangible. There is so much in the imagined and sensational; it teaches us beyond what the former can name. In a world where the latter is continuously threatened, banned, and marginalized, the understanding and preservation of such practices are increasingly important.Thus, it must always be shared both in process with my cast and in witnessing through the audience. 

 

Thank you Ilo! Please join us on March 28 & 29 at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts for Queer B/being.