EDC Choreographer Spotlight: Helen Wang

Our next choreographer spotlight is Helen Wang! Helen is a dance & movement studies major, who is very excited to be choreographing for the Emory Dance Company this semester. Helen's cast of four dancers has been working with themes of beauty, and she received inspiration for the work from many different sources.

Read on to find our more about Helen's work!

*Responses have been edited for length and clarity

My work is about my perception of beauty, which is dictated by desires and points to the idea of vanity. There is a twofold meaning of vanity - one is being excessively prideful about one's attractiveness and the other is the state of being futile and empty. Both meanings of vanity constitute the framework of my piece.

Since I have a relatively small cast with only four dancers, I start with a core phrase that I choreograph, and then teach the dancers. I also give them prompts to choreograph, and modify the material I give them. The input from the dancers is an important part of the process because much of the piece is made up of solos and duets.

My work was first inspired by a music video called "Ugly Beauty," sung and performed by Taiwanese singer Jolin Tsai. This music video reflects some of the social phenomena in Taiwanese society and reveals that now is the age of "lookism." Being born and raised in the same society, I also drew on some personal experiences on the topic of perceptions of beauty, and finally reached the conclusion that the pursuit of beauty is often simply to satisfy one's desire and ultimately it's all vanity.

I was also inspired by a dessert called magic chocolate ball in which normally there are brownies and ice cream inside, and the chocolate dome is subsequently melted by molten chocolate. This dessert reminds me of the idea of vanity - being pompous outside and hollow inside, so I decided to bring it to the stage. One dancer puts the chocolate ball on another dancer's head and then pours the molten chocolate to melt the chocolate dome, representing the ruins wreaked by vanity while pursuing beauty based on unrestrained desires. I also intend to use fake rose petals (either red or blue or both) to create a rectangular path along the stage while the center part remains hollow, which also echoes back to the idea of vanity.


Thanks Helen!

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EDC Choreographer Spotlight: Maria McNiece

Maria McNiece is our next choreographer spotlight! Maria is a junior at Emory double majoring in dance & movement studies and business. Her work Cubism uses a 26-foot 4x4 grid to translate the concept of cubism into three-dimensional movement using six dancers. This is her first time choreographing for EDC and she is very excited to share this work!

Read on to find out more about Maria's creative process!

*Responses have been edited for length and clarity

As an artist, I'm interested in creating work which evades narrative and entertainment to explore functional movement, and I sought to express my artistic values clearly through this work. Cubism is a group exploration of shape and line, a tethered relationship to inanimate grid, and design of movement patterns around a space.

This first months of rehearsals were characterized by collaborative movement generation between me and my dancers. We used prompts related to angularity, line, and directionality to create dozens of phrases, and then worked to select the most interesting explorations and curate the work's structure. As a group, we created a complete exploration of what it meant to translate cubism through movement. This process was highly collaborative; I do not have the talent alone to create the caliber of work as a team of seven can.

For this work, the stage is structured with lines of masking tape constructing a 26-foot, 4x4 grid on the floor. The dancers' movement outlines the geometry of the squares, places them inside the grid, and ultimately, deconstructs the rules of the physical structure which characterize the piece. I am inspired by the functional aesthetic of costumes utilized by Trisha Brown Dance Company, and worked with designer Cyndi Church to dress my dancers similarly. The pure functionality of the costume choices reflect my proclivity to minimize production elements and only showcase the essential.

As a movement artist, I am especially inspired by the avant-garde and postmodern style developed most prominently by Merce Cunningham during the 1960/70s. When I was beginning this process and considering how I wanted the work's vocabulary to materialize, I decided to apply postmodern values into movement generation while leaning into my love of floor work. The first drafts of this work utilized a vocabulary of floor work exclusively; however, as the work developed, I felt the need to explore cubism on different levels and planes, and could not ignore the possibilities of bringing my dancers off the floor. The final product of this process includes movement on every level of space, with clear attention form the dancers on their bodies' shape, line, and directionality.

Thanks Maria!

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EDC Choreographer Spotlight: Kelly Vogel

Emory Dance Company's spring concert "eight" is just around the corner! This concert features new contemporary work by eight student artists. The choreographic works are a culmination of the Choreography II course, led by Professor George Staib, where students learn about the different components of group choreography. As we get closer to the shows April 25-27th, we will be sharing a little insight into each of the works through a choreographer spotlight blog series. Kelly Vogel, a senior dance & movement students major, is our first choreographer spotlight!

Read on to find out more about Kelly's work, verge!

*Responses have been edited for length and clarity

I wanted to explore the idea of divisiveness in my work. As a human being existing in this world, we are constantly bombarded by the proposition to take sides, whether it be in the form of a political party, a certain stance on an issue, or simply an affiliation with an institution or group. It is clear to me the unproductive barriers that this mentality creates - which is why I wanted to start to untangle this topic with my dancers in my piece verge. Although my piece does not solve this division problem, or even necessarily provide answers about why humans exist in this state of divide, I am hoping it will enable audience members to evaluate their own perspectives, behaviors, and tendencies.

My dancers were crucial to the choreographic process. Without their investment in the work and their creativity, my piece would not exist. The way I enjoyed working collaboratively with my dancers was through prompts: I would give them various components of a rough sketch of what I wanted, whether that be an emotion, an attitude, a specific quality of movement, a relationship with another dancer, etc., and then I would set them free to create. Then, as choreographer, I saw it as my job to filter these ideas and understand how to arrange them in time and space to convey the movement and message I wanted.


Thanks Kelly!

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