Emory Dance Company: Meet the Choreographers

The Spring 2026 Emory Dance Company Concert on April 15-18 features new work by students Jillian Lee, Marina Dawn, faculty member Lori Teague, Arts Fellow Madelyn Sher and alumna Mia Shocket.

Read below as Jillian and Marina share more about their works and creative process.

  

Three words to describe Jillian’s work: Attuned, Absent, Fragmented

My work explores presence as a psychological and physical phenomenon, specifically what happens when the two fall out of sync. We examine the dissonance that can arise when the body is in one place but the mind is somewhere else entirely. 

I hope to create a work that is technically rigorous yet deeply human by juxtaposing movement qualities and introducing tension between the collective and the individual. Contrasting movement qualities, like rigidity and fluidity, function in a similar way, articulating the themes of the work through the body.

My dancers bring their own voices to the piece, generating individual material and working together to find shared moments. Set improvisational scores keep the work alive, cultivating the sensitivity and awareness necessary to collaborate in real time. I regularly invite feedback and new ideas from the group, so the trajectory of work is constantly being shaped by everyone in the room.

Rather than offering answers, I want the work to open a question about presence that reaches beyond the stage and into the audience’s own lives and relationships.

Three words to describe Marina's work: Provocative, Cheeky, Empowering

Some of the concepts I'm exploring in my work include how we express our desires, feminine sexuality, and  relationships.

My dancers are integral to my creative process. I bring them in for collaboration often because I want their experiences and feelings with these themes to shine through. I hope to make my dancers feel sexy and confident, I want the audience to question what they consider sexuality to be.

Thank you Jillian and Marina! Click here to purchase tickets for the EDC Spring Concert.

Excess Incomplete: An Honors Thesis Concert by Nadia Piecyk

On March 26 & 27 at 7:30pm, dance major Nadia Piecyk will present an Honors Thesis Concert entitled Excess Incomplete. This is a free event and registration is not required. Read below to learn about Nadia's research and creative process. 

Excess Incomplete emerges from Piecyk’s research into ways of viewing disability through a queer lens and as a profoundly embodied approach to disrupting systems of normativity. Drawing from disability studies and queer theory, the work investigates how power structures create binaries of normality and deviance, and how dance might unsettle those assumptions through movement itself. 

She shares, “As an artist, I am increasingly interested in disability as fertile ground for body wisdom. I am drawn to relationships within and between bodies, moving in accordance with and against impulse and expectation, zooming in and out of the body, and exploring contrasts of effort and rest.” 

In the rehearsal process with her cast, Piecyk centers “dancer agency and voice” through improvisational scores, text, and proximity-focused movement explorations. Rather than privileging a single “correct” movement vocabulary, the work unfolds through generative practices that allow multiple interpretations to coexist. 

Reflecting on the process, Piecyk shares, “I was especially interested in treating rehearsal itself as research. What does it mean to lead rehearsal through a disability justice framework?” Inspired by concepts of “care webs,” the work positions community as an essential choreographic force. 

She hopes that audiences leave the performance with “more questions than answers,” feeling oddity, resilience, corporeality, and care, while challenging the assumption that bodies must conform to dominant norms to be worthy of attention. 

 

Thank you Nadia! Please join us on March 26 & 27 at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts for Excess Incomplete.

Friends of Dance Mini-Grant Recipient: Izzy Lefand

  Dance major Izzy Lefand received a Friends of Dance mini-grant to attend the staibdance Root Theory Winter Workshop in January 2026. Read on for a reflection of her experience. 

Through an Emory Friends of Dance Mini-Grant, I was able to attend the staibdance Root Theory Winter Workshop over the January 2026 winter break.

The nature of Root Theory followed the exploration of movement and its rawness. Throughout the weekend, the classes explored an animalistic structure of movement. This was through learning material from staibdance’s between dog and wolf, which highlighted predator and prey relationships of movement. Many of the prompts involved being both the hunter and the hunted at different moments in the material.

Since coming to college, I have made it a goal of mine to watch more dance in order to expand my own ideas of movement, so being able to watch others in a classroom setting formed this natural environment of learning and creativity. With several of the attendees being professional dancers in the industry, there was a new spin to the running of the classes. I am used to attending conventions, but most of them were in high school, with many attendees being high school students who are focused on only learning new material. For these workshops, we would learn combinations of movements in many different styles, but Root Theory, alternatively, was focused on fostering personal creativity.

Much of the material also had a focus on sound, and human reactions to moving. One class was an acting seminar to increase comfort in unusual facial expressions and gut reactions in sound. Personally, I have found sound in dance to be very effective when it is a genuine reaction, so during this class, I tried to implement a raw and realistic approach.

Outside of learning material, there were classes to promote individualized movement creation and partnership through contact improvisation. The creation of choreography is normally something I generate in my own space, so creating with others in the area with me formed a unified experience to create without judgment. With something like contact improvisation specifically, there is a level of vulnerability that is comforting in a space with unfamiliar people.

These practices opened my modes of creation and relieved some of the pressure around the art world. Everyone kept similar explorative aspects that made moving with each other a genuine and supportive experience.

Thank you for sharing this reflection Izzy! Click here to learn more about The Friends of Dance at Emory.