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.” 

Meet Israeli Institute Guest Artist Dafi Altabeb

By Raven Crosby, Emory Dance Program Office Assistant

Note: Dafi Altabeb's quotes have been incorporated into this story and have been edited for length and clarity.

During the fall semester, the Emory Dance Program has had the honor of hosting Israeli guest artist Dafi Altabeb. So far this semester, she has held a creativity talk with Dance Program Director Lori Teague, while also teaching the Modern IV technique course and choreographing a piece for Emory Dance Company. Altebeb’s impressive career includes performances of her work in major international venues. She is a three-time recipient of the Israeli Ministry of Culture Excellence Award. Although Altabeb’s schedule is fairly busy, she took some time for an interview about her life as a choreographer.

Background
While she did not envision growing up to be a choreographer as a child, Atlaben has always been interested in movement and dance. She was inspired at a young age by the Olympic games and movies with dance in them, and would imitate the movements that she saw. Altabeb, who originally wanted to be a veterinarian, began her journey as a choreographer by choreographing for a big festival in her town for many age groups, in which she won first prize awards.

Altabeb, who has been dancing for much of her life, began her training as a member of a folklore dance company that solidified her performance skills. In addition, she took daily classes in a variety of genres and techniques. Once she began college, she began dancing every day, with at least half of the day dedicated to technique classes.

Teaching and Choregraphing at Emory
This fall, Altabeb is teaching the Modern IV advanced technique course, which she has described as challenging and rewarding at the same time, as this is her first time teaching a full-semester course. She focuses on having students use the floor, the wall, and each other to experience support during movement, and how these supports an teach students to get power from it and use less force by themselves. She focuses on "leaning" in movement through combinations on the floor, using the wall, and in the center. For example, she has students perform a plie exercise while leaning on the wall.

Altabeb is one of the choreographers for the Emory Dance Company this season and when asked about how she cultivates movement, she responded: “Emotions drive me to create. It is usually what I and others feel about a subject. It is usually a topic that I am dealing with." Altabeb describes her movement process as bringing a theme into the studio and hearing what others have to say about it. Altatbeb and her dancers then work with improvisation games that will build the first material for the piece. She records these improvisations and watches them with her partner, Nini Moshe, and pulls movements that captivated them. Altabeb then chooses movements from the videos, and with the dancers, develops them, changes them, and works on their dynamics, tempo, movement qualities, etc. to ultimately create a piece that in the end is not improvised at all.

The Importance of Travel

Altabeb states: "Traveling abroad is the highlight if my career. I’m grateful that my art can be seen all over the world. It is really exciting to see how other people around the world react to my pieces. I love seeing how dance can communicate in such a global way, without using words."

One of Altabeb’s most exciting travel experiences was when she was commissioned to create a full-length piece to be premiered in an archaeological site on Naples. Six dancers performed sensitivity to heat, with a soundtrack based on Italian operas. The site had “a very special location on the sea and the audience came into the site threw a tunnel with lamps. It was a very important turning point in my career and a huge thing that happened to us.” 

See Dafi's new work for Emory Dance Company November 21-23, 2019. Tickets are available at tickets.arts.emory.edu or 404-727-7266.

 

Emory Dance Company Conert Photos

These are just a few of many beautiful photos taken by Lori Teague of the fall Emory Dance Company Concert, November 18-20, 2010. A larger selection can be found on our Facebook page.



"Shakers" by Doris Humphrey




"miles to the left" by Lori Teague




"After the Curtain" by Tara Lee




"Chimera" by Gregory Catellier



"Off Main, Veer Left" by T. Lang



Working with a Guest Choreographer: A Student's Perspective

This post was written by junior dance major Kala Seidenberg, about her experience working with Emory Dance Company guest choreographer Tara Lee, principal dancer with the Atlanta Ballet. The Emory Dance Company performs at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts November 18-20, 2010. Click here for event details.

Opening night of the fall Emory Dance Company concert is one day away, and I am feeling sad that rehearsals are ending. I have to admit that this year’s EDC concert is very distinct from past shows. Working with Tara Lee turned out to be very different from what I anticipated. Back in August, hearing that a principal ballerina would be coming to choreograph at Emory immediately grabbed my attention, and I saw working with Tara as an opportunity to improve my technique and work on ballet performance. I have been pleasantly surprised however, that the work is not really ballet, but more contemporary in style.

Working with Tara, her assistant Jessie, and the other dancers has been a huge learning experience for me in so many ways. First of all, watching Tara and Jessie move with such an organic and spineless quality has shown me the importance of versatility. Here are two dancers who constantly train and perform in classical ballet, but are diverse enough dancers to step away from that and do less bound movement when called to do so. Rehearsing with them has proven to me the importance of training and technique in all dance forms, and that the more you train and study, the more eclectic and versatile dancer you can be.

Similarly, it was interesting to work with their choices of music and its relationship with their movement. They included four different songs from the artist Beirut in our piece. Seeing how they match their movement with the music through musical visualizations has been a new experience for me. The other choreographers I have worked with at Emory have taken a different approach in which the main focus of the piece was the movement, not necessarily connecting visually with the music.

Please join us  to see Kala and the other students from the Emory Dance Company perform works by Doris Humphrey, guest choreographers Tara Lee and T. Lang, and Emory faculty members Gregory Catellier, George Staib, and Lori Teague.

Photos from Arts Soiree and Friends of Dance Lecture

Here are a few photos from our September events, the Arts Soiree on September 10 and the Friends of Dance Lecture on September 14. At the Arts Soiree, dance musicians Kendall Simpson and Klimchak improvised music outside the Schwartz Center, while in the dance studio Bridget Roosa of Agnes Scott College led a rehearsal of Doris Humphrey's "Shakers." Emory and Agnes Scott are teaming up to present "Shakers," using dancers from both schools, at a concert in October at Agness Scott, and at the Emory Dance Company concert in November.

Kendall Simpson and Klimchak making music outside the Schwartz Center.

 

Bridget Roosa leading a rehearsal of "Shakers."

Teena Marie Custer leads a master class in house dance. 

Custer demonstrates during begining breaking master class.

Students demonstrated various hip hop dances styles during Custer's Friends of Dance lecture.

Our 2010-2011 events are now on our website: www.dance.emory.edu/events! We have a great line-up for next year, including:

• Friends of Dance Lectures: hip-hop artist Teena Marie Custer speaks on women in hip hop dance styles, accompanied by a demonstration (fall) and Brenda Dixon Gottschild speaking on Africanism in modern and postmodern dance and American ballet (spring).
• An evening of dance on film
• Faculty concerts by George Staib (with live music by the Vega String Quartet) and Gregory Catellier featuring professional dancers
  
• Alumni Concert featuring work by Emory Dance Program alumni
• Emory Dance Company concerts (performed by Emory dance students):
  
  • Fall, choreography by Dance Program faculty and guest artists
  • Spring, choreography by Dance Program students

Emphasizing Individual Beauty and Power

This is the last in our series of posts by Emory Dance Company choreographers, who have been blogging about the inspirations for their choreography for the spring concert. This week senior Sanet Steyn describes the piece she has developed for the spring Emory Dance Company concert, I Prefer to Call it a Nudge. Buy your tickets now for the concert, April 22-24 (box office: 404-727-5050).

I was not born a dancer. I always found the extension of my limbs bit baffling. In fact, even with four years of dancing at Emory I still seemed to be unable to move elegantly. I have always been described as very athletic, but never quite graceful. Instead of having my lack of lithe movements hold me back from committing to dance, I decided to explore it as a source for inspiration. In my piece for the EDC spring show I explored my strong, athletic style to create a martial arts-jazz fusion influenced piece. I investigated the balance between strength and grace in the female form; with a cast of ten girls, I have the perfect opportunity to express the unique distinctions that define every woman. No girl has the same character or style of movement and in those differences my dance is embodied. Though each girl is different they are all elegant and graceful, but also strong and confident; my piece is the expression of those two seemingly contradicting ideas unified into a singular theme. I’m hoping to draw the audience into the ebb and flow of physical and mental rhythms I experience when dancing. By representing those movements through bodies other than my own that perform it in their own personal style, I hope to emphasize the universal, individual beauty and power of each person.

Get your tickets for the Emory Dance Company Spring Concert

The spring Emory Dance Company concert is coming up soon, so buy your tickets now--this concert always sells out! Call the box office at 404-727-5050 or click here to purchase your tickets.

Concert dates and times:
April 22-24, 2010 (Thursday-Saturday), 8:00 p.m.
April 24, 2010 (Saturday), 2:00 p.m.

Location: Dance Studio, Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, 1700 North Decatur Rd., Atlanta, GA 30322

Cost:
$10 public; $8 discount categories; $5 students

This concert features choreography by Emory dance students, performed by students of the Emory Dance Company. For the last couple of months, students have posted on this blog about their choreographic process, so check them out for a preview (click here to view all of these posts).

Before you did, I hadn’t in years

As part of our series of Emory Dance Company choreographer posts, this week junior dance minor Mohammad Zaidi (pictured below) describes the piece he is developing for the spring Emory Dance Company concert, I Prefer to Call it a Nudge.

The piece I am creating for the spring concert investigates the essence of performance and the undeniable connection a performer has with an audience member. My theoretical approach towards performance is grounded in the fact that two bodies that exist within the same space and the same time share an equal importance. This theory moves beyond the dancers on stage and compels the viewer to contribute as much to the experience as the performer does. My exploration of this concept to the dance stage met challenges, but after being inspired by a scene in Orhan Pamuk’s novel “Snow,” I found that rapid changes in perspective and fluid lines of interaction between the viewer and performer can make the experience equally exciting and invigorating for the dancer and those who are “viewing” the dance. In translating this to the stage, I found that reconstructing the space so that dancers and audience members are interspersed with each other would immediately destroy the artificial boundary that exists during performance. In regards to the movement vocabulary, I found that my movement is unapologetic, bullying, and demands immediate and unequivocal attention so that the viewer is pulled into performing with the dancers at once. The aggression that is present in the movement will hopefully be an undeniable experience for the audience members attending the concert that will draw out a visceral response that acknowledges the presence and importance of every individual present in the space.

Palindrome

Senior dancer Nirvi Shah is choreographing a piece for the spring Emory Dance Company concert (April 22-24). The post below describes her piece and the motivation behind her choreography.

Nirvi Shah’s “Palindrome” is a dance piece blending Indian Classical styles with modern dance. Being trained in both techniques, Nirvi has had to face a battle of postures, intentions and performance qualities while learning. Indian Classical dance is very rigid, structured, anecdotal, and presentational whereas modern dance has opportunities to be internally or externally focused and contains a wide breadth of dance movement. It is a challenge to fuse the two vastly different techniques together, which also symbolizes Nirvi’s challenge of being raised in America with a strong Indian heritage.

Although she was born in Atlanta, Georgia, her first language is Gujarati, a West Indian language, and she relates more to Indian culture. Growing up in an American school system and culture has been a constant compromise of values and ideals. Stereotypically, Eastern culture is more conservative and community based while Western culture is liberal and is focused on the nuclear family and self. Nirvi knows that there are other American born Indians as well as other second generation immigrants who also deal with the same situation of being part of two separate societies and are trying to bridge the gap between them while remaining true to both cultures. “Palindrome” is a piece that presents both dance styles and attempts to fuse them, while remaining genuine to both movements just as children of immigrants have been endeavoring to do so and are slowly able to find a fair compromise.

Working with the Narrative Dance Form

As part of our series of Emory Dance Company choreographer posts, this week senior dance major Lindsay Reich describes the piece she is developing for the spring Emory Dance Company concert.

My current project for the Spring Emory Dance Company performance is a duet with Jaqueline Woo and Stephanie Binkow. We are developing an abstract narrative dance to George Gershwin’s most famous composition, "Rhapsody in Blue." The choreography is inspired by black and white silent films, creating a humorous exchange between the two dancers. By rapidly manipulating the dancer’s role within the relationship, the audience is challenged to develop their own understanding of the characters and the constantly shifting narrative.

We began the rehearsal process discussing the complicated dynamics between female friendships. We asked a variety of questions including: How do friendships emerge? What do girls want or need from a friendship? What kind of arguments do girlfriends get into? What causes a friendship to end? Based on this information, we outlined a simple narrative that provided a structure for the dance. Once we completed a draft of the dance, we are now in the process of editing and elaborating the movement.

Currently, my biggest challenge is to find a balance between a literal narrative and abstract movement. I want to allow the audience to draw personal meaning from a non-sequential narrative rather than causing complete confusion! This project has been a challenging yet fun approach to the narrative dance form and I am looking forward to see how the work unveils.

Exploring the Decay of a Relationship

Emory Dance Company student choreographers are blogging about their choreographic process throughout the semester. This week senior dance major Leigh Ann Kabatra describes the piece she is developing for the spring Emory Dance Company concert.

My piece explores the decay of a relationship. At the beginning of the piece, the relationship is loving and healthy but quickly becomes tense and strained. The dancers’ movement alternates between elegant and sharp. Parts of the piece are very gentle and relaxed, while others are bound, athletic, and jagged.

I begin each section of the piece by creating a core phrase that all the dancers learn. After practicing the phrase with all the dancers, I manipulate the original phrase so that each dancer has a unique version. The dancers then perform their unique phrases at the same time, allowing them to move in and out of unison and indulge in parts of their phrase work without worrying about timing or cues.

My dancers have developed much of the piece’s movement themselves. We began one rehearsal with a structured improvisation in partnering, and the dancers developed such rich, natural movement that I had them continue partnering and improvising to create even more. The dancers developed more exciting movement with one another than I could create on my own, and we are still working with improvisation to develop more partnering phrases.

The Savage Beast within You

Continuing with our series of Emory Dance Company student choreographers (see Feb. 12 for the intro), this week senior dance major Tiffany Greenwood describes her choreographic process.

I find everyday events and people fascinating. What I find the most interesting is the subtleties that define these everyday events. So much information is given and received through simple gesture like a handshake, a hug, a look, or a touch. The brush against another person as you walk to class, the placement of another’s hands as they embrace you, or the looks you receive from a friend, lover, family, or an acquaintance are exchanges I want to bring to the forefront.

Using the previous idea mentioned, I want to explore these everyday subtleties the in realm of immediate impulses and reactions. I also want to explore the basic needs and desires of the humans and to investigate how we deal with them particularly when our conscience becomes involved. I would describe the movement as raw, animalistic, indulgent, and impulsive. For my piece, the process is more important than the final production. My dancers and I will use our own experiences, the good and the bad, to derive the movement quality for the piece. My goal is to make the movement and movement quality as raw and realistic as possible because I want it to be an enhanced depiction of everyday life.

Dependence/Independence

Continuing with our series of Emory Dance Company student choreographers (see Feb. 12 for the intro), this week dance major Kaitlyn Pados describes her choreographic process.

At the beginning of the semester, I started to brainstorm ideas for my upcoming Emory Dance Company piece. I found, however, that entering my piece with an already established meaning was incredibly limiting for me. When I tried to choreograph, I immediately questioned every movement idea and took everything far too literally. Instead, I decided to restart my process from a different entry point. I created some movement material in the studio on which I wanted to base my work. I did not trouble myself with what this movement might “mean” to an audience, I was just attracted to the mood it generated as I performed it. Since teaching my six dancers this new phrase material and working through a month of rehearsals, we have discovered thematic elements which are allowing a potential meaning to emerge on its own.

My piece is now examining the line between dependence and independence. I am very drawn to fleeting interactions between the dancers, and finding where trust is built and tested in both physical and emotional senses. In rehearsals, I like to alter the timing and groupings of the dancers to explore how these components shape the relationships on stage. Currently, I am trying various music options to see how it affects the dancers and their performance. We are discovering that there is a fine line between feeding emotion to the audience via music and letting the movement speak for itself, the latter of which is my ultimate goal.

-Kaitlyn Pados

Energy

Continuing with our series of Emory Dance Company student choreographers (see Feb. 12 for the intro), this week we hear from senior dance major Allie Bruehlman.

I am currently working with a cast of five dancers for my piece in the Emory Dance Company concert this spring. I originally envisioned this piece as a narrative about my relationships with a group of friends from my hometown. As the rehearsal process began, however, I quickly grew tired of attempting to adhere to and to portray such deep friendships in any sort of literal way. Instead, I began to work with the cast as merely a group of people. Since then, the piece has become more about the relationship possibilities between individuals within a group, about the joyous and all-encompassing energy that can be created when people come together.

Though the work is still in its beginning stages, I am already in awe of the raw vitality my cast delivers to the studio. The cast is extremely diverse in terms of movement affinities and training, and each dancer brings a unique personality into the rehearsal process. Thus, my most powerful creative impetus stems from the energy of my talented dancers. As the semester continues, I hope to delve into the seemingly endless challenges and possibilities of creating a cohesive group dynamic from such powerful individual forces.

-Allie Bruehlman

The Coconut and the Peach: Choreographic Inspiration

Each week for the next couple of months, Emory dance students choreographing work for the Emory Dance Company spring concert (April 22-24) will blog about their choreographic process and inspiration. First up is Sandra Chan, a junior in the Business School, who is also completing the requirements for a dance minor.

Coming from Hong Kong, I have experienced how different two cultures can be at Emory.

I got my inspiration for my choreography during the international panel at the Goizueta Business School last semester. Dominic Wang, a current MBA student from China, has an interesting and insightful observation: Americans are like peach, while Chinese are like coconut. Americans are very friendly to you, they will say hi whenever they see you, but it is very hard to penetrate their life in a deeper level, like the middle of a peach. Chinese always seem to be in closed groups that are hard to penetrate, as it is very hard to break the shell of a coconut to get the juice. But once you are in the group, you are extremely close to everyone else in the group.

Although this observation is a generalization of the two cultures that Dominic and I are familiar with, and people act so differently within the same culture, it is astonishing to find out how accurate this observation is. At the same time, I find a lot of similarities between a peach and a coconut. They are both fruits that are round in shape and juicy. I believe that we can apply the same logic looking at these two cultures. It really depends on the perspective(s) you have when you look into cultural issues. Through my choreography, I wish that my audience could have the experience to look at cultural issues from these two extremely dissimilar perspectives, and hopefully this experience will have an impact on their life.

-Sandra Chan

Emory Dance Company performances start tonight!

The Emory Dance Company's fall concert, "Muscle Memory," featuring choreography by faculty of the Emory Dance Program, starts tonight! All of the concert pieces involve the theme of memory and are performed by Emory students. Ticket proceeds from the Saturday night performance will benefit the Sally A. Radell Friends of Dance Scholarship Fund.

Performances are:
Thursday, Nov. 19, 8:00pm
Friday, Nov. 20, 8:00pm
Sat. Nov. 21, 2:00pm and 8:00pm

For tickets, call the Arts at Emory Box Office at 404-727-5050.