*Contains Explicit Language*
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Emmalee Hallinan is a performer, choreographer, dance educator, and lifelong learner. Since the age of VHS Disney Sing-Along tapes, Emmalee has been building her understanding of the world through movement. She began taking dance lessons in her hometown of Altoona, Pennsylvania, and with the encouragement of her friends, family, and local community, pursued dance studies at Slippery Rock University. She graduated magna cum laude with a BFA in Dance/Business Administration in 2017 and was recognized as Outstanding Choreographer of her graduating class. She served as the dean’s assistant intern at the American Dance Festival in the summer of 2017 under the direction of Leah Cox and returned to ADF in 2019, where she performed in Paul Taylor’s Esplanade, staged by Michael Trusnovec. Under the mentorship of Jocelyn Hrzic and Danielle Bower, she developed her skills as a pedagogue at the prestigious Grier School in Tyrone, PA. In her three years on faculty, she was fortunate enough to work with students from all over the United States, and all around the world. In privileged studio spaces, she facilitated a diverse room of movers in a multitude of dance forms. She has trained at the American Dance Festival, the Paul Taylor winter intensive, in studio with the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, and with a variety of influential artists through the channel of the Grier School.
Most recently, she has started the journey toward completing her M.F.A in dance/choreography at the University of Iowa. Acquainting herself with scholarship and theory, she is currently in the process of building bridges between the wealth of embodied knowledge she has attained through years of dance/somatic practice and her understandings of the way her art positions itself within culture and society more broadly. In gratitude to the movers, shakers, and makers from diverse backgrounds who have influenced her and who continue to influence her work, she forges forward with her practice as research and teaching endeavors –hoping to empower individuals through movement and foster inclusive communities along the way. |
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Educating the FutureTeaching Philosophy / 2021
Emmalee has had the pleasure of facilitating embodied learning for a wide range of student populations. She has worked with learners spanning from 5-18 years of age, from all over the globe, at every skill level. Her unique experience has equipped her with special skills in adapting the extension of her knowledge, so that each learning format serves the needs of each pupil. Through her teaching, she aims to establish a population of mindful, empathetic, and driven practitioners. At the heart of her dance practice is the desire to generate a sense of community and camaraderie, and to develop holistic strength in each individual. Her students describe her as, “A strong motivator and careful instructor, who goes the extra mile to provide thoughtful information and selfless support.” In her extension of various movement practices and genres, she emphasizes the importance of sound alignment, clarity of connections, and autonomous creative decision making. She works to prioritize the context of the embodied knowledge she shares by citing and sourcing her movement influences, and acknowledging her relationship to a lineage of identities and communities that are mapped across both beautiful and complicated histories. Her passion for continuing her own education is steeped in the desire to offer quality knowledge to her students, and to reverse the damage of exclusive and inequitable practices in the field through informed and careful engagement. Placing value in these areas has encouraged self-efficacy in her students. They know quite well the objectives they are striving for in each respective class. Because of their deep curiosity and investment, the individuals in her classes are in consistent service to their own learning and to the learning of their peers. Emmalee attempts to stimulate the thinking body, and hopes that this multivalent knowledge reception, on part of her students, results in their broadened appreciation for and understanding of themselves in the world they inhabit. Through her teaching, she helps her students recognize what kinds of practices sustain and strengthen them, what habits and environments may be damaging to them, what unique skills and modes of discovery diverse knowledge can potentialize, and how everyone training in the room is informing the practice of everyone else. She has witnessed the curiosity, excitement, and hunger for knowledge grow in the hearts of her students, and marvels at each learner’s magnificent evolution, which inevitably accompanies their commitment to such a multi-faceted discipline. |
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As an independent artist, Emmalee is available for hire in dance performance, master-classes, and choreographic residencies.
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