Emory Dance Company Choreographer: Chi Rung Chan

 

The Spring 2024 Emory Dance Company Concert on April 18-20 features new work by students in our Choreography II course. Read about choreographer Chi Rung Chan's work and process below!

I’m exploring play through the rules, shapes, spatial patterns, and imagery of Taiwanese Mahjong.  I’m exploring rave through their specific culture, concepts, and music.  I’m most excited to world-build, through factual knowledge on our shared Taiwanese culture, as well as pure imagination and play on the concepts I’m exploring.  

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While I am very hands-on and experimental, I am extremely intentional and specific in my movement generation. I enjoy sharing with my dancers the inspirations behind what we are building, and I especially enjoy watching them welcome and interpret my ideas with open arms and a twist of their own creativity. I practice collaboration in workshopping and problem-solving as a team with my cast, having fun and connecting with one another in the creative process. To me, that reflects not only my values as a choreographer but also a key component in both Mahjong and raving: to build relationships while having fun together.  

Thank you Chi Rung! Tickets for the Emory Dance Company Spring 2024 Concert are on sale now. Click here to purchase them now!

Emory Dance Company Choreographer: Ilo E.

 

Photo by Lori Teague

The Spring 2024 Emory Dance Company Concert on April 18-20 features new work by students in our Choreography II course. Read about choreographer Ilo E.'s work and process below!

Excitingly, I am exploring several concepts in my piece. Primarily, I am working with themes of oppression, resistance, and liberation. In terms of oppression, I’ve been exploring the concept of linear time (past, present, future) and its relation to progress in western ideology. In regard to resistance, I’ve been exploring binaries such as abnormal/normal, performer/audience, and mind/body in order to understand both how White supremacy uses these to “other” and oppress marginalized identities and how these same identities use their cultural sensibilities to resist such oppression. My work uses the Afro-centric forms West African dance, Afro-Caribbean dance, Hip-Hop, and House to ground these narratives and foster a liberated community.

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Creating a space for my fellow BIPOC dancers to explore and practice cultural forms that they would otherwise not have consistent access to, has been a fulfilling experience. My choreographic process has been a mixture of discussion, movement generation, and learning foundational techniques that later show up in choreographed material.

I hope the several textures, images, and ideas of the work encourage the audience to witness the piece. To witness means to take in a subject(s) through all of the senses and respond in the moment through them as well. This may take the form of clapping, stomping, oral sound, or even moving! Moreover, those witnessing are encouraged to let go of categorizing said subjects and instead, let their offering write/rewrite their identity in that moment.  

Thank you Ilo! Tickets for the Emory Dance Company Spring 2024 Concert are on sale now. Click here to purchase them now!

Dance Major Ilo E. shares Dance Photography Project: 9raxis

Dance Major Ilo E. is currently enrolled in the course, Intro to Black Feminism taught by Dr. Marcellite Failla, and for his final project pursued a dance photography exhibition featuring nine images that symbolize his Black feminist identity entitled "9raxis". Learn more about the project in Ilo's words below, and view some of the images captured by faculty member Lori Teague!

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9raxis is a combination of the term ‘praxis’ and the number ‘9’. I chose the word praxis because of its intrinsic relationship to Black feminist thought. According to Black feminist scholar Patricia Hill Collins, Black feminist thought does several things. First and foremost, Black feminism is an oppositional framework. In challenging oppression it creates an informational cycle between activism, Black feminist theory, and praxis. In understanding the intersection of oppression for marginalized identities (i.e. race and gender), Black feminists use shared experiences to empower collective standpoints, as well as exercise coalition building. In Black feminism ‘the personal is political’, and thus ALL oppressed people must be free. 

In P2axis, my spine curved in a perfect arc as I swung my flesh around me, amused and in awe by the shapes it made.  Feeling liberated, my flesh filled my kinesphere. I chose the colors gold, black, and green to represent the Jamaican flag. On the flag, green represents the vegetation of the island. Gold represents the wealth and warmth of the land. And black represents the people. I swing the black cloth around me letting it curl, wave, and fill with air to represent my liberated body, as well as the flesh of my ancestors. I like to think it also represents the fluidity of my gender, sexuality, and being. 

In Pr5xis, my hair whirled, poked, and reached around my head as I walked across the space, bouncing and swinging my arms. “Stand up” by reggae artists Kabaka Pyramid and Nathalia blasted throughout the Schwartz studio. Like hip-hop, reggae represents conscious movers of a conscious movement. Over the years, reggae music has become intrinsically tied to Rastafarians: members of an apolitical, social, and spiritual movement that originated in Jamaica. Rastafarianism, like Black feminism, vouches for the self-governing, actualization, and freedom of all oppressed people; including displaced Africans.

One may notice that 9raxis features themes of culture, gender, sexuality, and race amongst other things. I ask that you both acknowledge these themes and appreciate the dynamics, depth, and feeling of each photo to reach beyond them. Find new meanings and your own praxis.

Click here to learn more about 9raxis!

Emory Dance Company Choreographer Lori Teague

The Fall 2023 Emory Dance Company Concert features new work by 2023-24 Emory Arts Fellow Annalee Traylor, guest artist Celeste Miller, and Emory dance faculty Gregory Catellier, George Staib, and Lori Teague.

Read about faculty member Lori Teague's work and process below!

We are exploring the embodiment of warrior and healer—the cyclical nature of repair and preparation in the body. The relationships between dancers (the connections) move from a state of sensing to actualizing a common front that gives voice to our fears. The intention of linking/connecting is about knowing each other and recognizing that our individual journeys are vastly different. These varied perspectives align through touch, shared space, and rhythmic solidarity. We hope to offer powerful imagery of bodies freeing themselves, who are interested in sharing power, and listening more deeply to each other. This practice in this performance can create positive social change. 

The individual expression of each body is being heard and embellished in the work - each person is discovering personal releases. I am also still exploring the act of seeing someone without labels. This is a prompt I have been exploring for a while in my work. 

In my process I am implementing ways for the dancers to know each other more, through authentic movement practices and storytelling. Sometimes we sit down and talk about issues that each of us confront, or have been confronted by--how do we handle them? What has it done to our bodies? 

In watching the work, I hope viewers experience healing. 

Tickets for the Emory Dance Company Fall 2023 Concert are on sale now. Click here to purchase them now!

Emory Dance Company Choreographer Celeste Miller

 

The Fall 2023 Emory Dance Company Concert features new work by 2023-24 Emory Arts Fellow Annalee Traylor, guest artist Celeste Miller, and Emory dance faculty Gregory Catellier, George Staib, and Lori Teague.

Read about guest choreographer Celeste Miller's work and process below! 

Some of the concepts I am exploring in my work include the following questions: how do we locate ourselves and our unique vocabulary within a technique but not limited by a technique? how do we find our genuine selves as inventive and curious movers? how do we begin to understand blending that uniqueness with others, so that we enter into a state of ensemble? 

 

In my process, I bring words, story prompts, ideas and invite the dancers to find themselves as movers within those prompts. I am very excited about the dancers I am working with - their openness, collaborative spirit and contributions to a supportive environment. Through their performance, I hope the audience catches a moment of their humanness. 

Tickets for the Emory Dance Company Fall 2023 Concert are on sale now. Click here to purchase them now!

Emory Dance Company Choreographer Annalee Traylor

 

The Fall 2023 Emory Dance Company Concert features new work by 2023-24 Emory Arts Fellow Annalee Traylor, guest artist Celeste Miller, and Emory dance faculty Gregory Catellier, George Staib, and Lori Teague.

Read about faculty member Annalee Traylor's work and process below! 

I am thrilled to be collaborating with such a talented, thoughtful, and generous cast. Each individual brings their unique talents and perspectives, making them an integral part of the work's trajectory. Together, we are creating a world full of contradictions; I remain intrigued and inspired by its possibilities. 

 

My process oscillates between prompt-driven exercises and movement generated from my body. Artifice is in perpetual query as we employ distortion and exaggeration to juxtapose raw and vulnerable moments. The idea or notion of persona has provided a conceptual framework for the work. Throughout the process, we continually examine how expressivity manifests through our entire being. 

 

I hope the work evokes an emotional reaction/connection for the viewer - whether through humor, pleasure, sentimentality, disgust, shock, confusion or another emotion - an underlying goal is always that the viewer has felt something. 

Tickets for the Emory Dance Company Fall 2023 Concert are on sale now. Click here to purchase them now!

Emory Dance Company Choreographer George Staib

The Fall 2023 Emory Dance Company Concert features new work by 2023-24 Emory Arts Fellow Annalee Traylor, guest artist Celeste Miller, and Emory dance faculty Gregory Catellier, George Staib, and Lori Teague.

Read about faculty member George Staib's work and process below!

I am currently working to find gritty physicality especially as it relates to partnering. I am using a somewhat “romantic” piece of music and within the playground of that score, am looking toward making the work look and feel murky. Although there are images that require finesse and somewhat statuesque interactions with other dancers – my goal is to reveal something a little more “underworldly.” The working title is “Altar” and therefore the work examines tendencies toward sacrificing and worshiping - non-Biblically. Through the process we are asking ourselves: how much is too much? When do we lose ourselves inside the act of coveting?  

I am excited and daunted by using a simple prop as well as music that is aesthetically pleasing. Both of these influences could easily lead me toward a work that feels and looks “pretty” – I am thrilled by the challenge of moving in the opposite direction.  

This process is highly collaborative. I tend to drop prompts and movement ideas into the space and ask the dancers to relate to them in their unique ways. From there, we work together to edit, crystalize images, and build from common ground.  

I am hoping for to create breathless anticipation and tension. Another goal is to drop images into the space that may lead a viewer toward their own ideas surrounding the notion of sacrifice. Additionally, I am intentionally working to avoid the tendency to “complete” an idea – rather, I am choosing to let an idea peak – and then dissolve, without resolution. 

Tickets for the Emory Dance Company Fall 2023 Concert are on sale now. Click here to purchase them now!