emily

Emily has some of the most intense eye contact that I’ve ever experienced. A gaze that can pierce an audience from the back row, her dance work has resonated with me from the first time I saw her step on stage at @uCalgarySCPA. She creates intentional sight lines that intentionally compliment and or juxtapose her physicality - work that I am constantly in awe of. 

Her originality and ability to create on the fly has been a revelation in studio. Despite having photographed the dance community for nearly a decade, I’ve never created a solid movement vocabulary for directing dance in studio. Emily remains among the precious few dancers that I’ve collaborated with that I feel really understands what I’m trying to do even when I can’t articulate it. 

“My aesthetic is Steve Jobs,” she told me the first time we collaborated, which ultimately lead to creating these portraits. A small nod to the iconic jobs photo with out being a recreation or a ripoff. She told me this while being the first and only person to explore and pose in the 20” vertical space underneath my Big Stage set (which you can see on my site!) Who else could have come up with The Floor Is Lava as a photoshoot? One of my favourite creatives of all time, I’m forever grateful for having met and had the privilege to create with someone so immensely gifted.