dancer, choreographer, and artist.
About
Emma Morris is a performance artist and choreographer whose work invites audiences to reconsider their relationship with home and place.
Rooted in release technique, ballet, and floorwork—and influenced by club culture and pedestrian movement—her work challenges performers both physically and mentally through complex partnering, athletic phrase work, and experiential input. She frequently incorporates original text and sound, using language as both a generative and performative tool to explore the surreal within the everyday. Informed by her background in environmental science and a nomadic upbringing, Emma’s work seeks to ground the abstract and enliven the mundane, building visceral, embodied worlds that invite reflection on the spaces we inhabit and the bodies we move through them in.
EMMA HAS PRESENTED WORK THROUGH
EMMA DANCES WITH KIT MODUS
she joined the company in 2019 for Mark Caserta's prettyend. Since then, Emma has premiered leading roles in many works including Christian Denise's Elapsed and Rescue Me, Noelle Kayser's anonymous, Yoshito Sakuraba's Murder Party, and Jillian Mitchell's Scion, Figment, and Who is the Dreamer. Through Kit Modus, Emma has worked to coach and guide choreographic process with students at UNCSA, University of Georgia, GCSU, Decatur School of Ballet, and at Kit Modus workshops. In 2023, Emma created Anthology for Dreamers for the company, which has been accepted into the company repertoire.
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Career highlights include:
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Revisiting Mark Caserta's prettyend in 2023 as a soloist
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Principal role in Jillian Mitchell's Figment, an evening-length work created in collaboration with Composer Philip G Anderson (2019 & 2021)
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Emma has danced in several independent projects throughout Atlanta appearing at Fall for Fall (2021,2022,2023), Dance Canvas (2021 & 2022), Modern Atlanta Dance Festival (2019 & 2021), Excuse the Art (2020), Mixtape (2019 and 2020) and in dance films.
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She has danced for choreographers Meg Gourley, Catherine Messina, Leo Briggs, Liz Stillerman, Patsy Collins, Loren McFalls, and Samantha Spriggs. She has formerly worked with Full Radius Dance and Zoetic Dance.
Emma's choreography has been presented in New York City, Atlanta, Boston, Columbia, Detroit, and Sarasota. Recognition includes
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2024 Meli Kaye Artist in Residence
2023 artist residency at the Hambidge Center for Arts and Cultural Sciences
2020 Atlanta Mayor's office of Cultural Affairs Pandemic grant recipient
2019 MIXTAPE artist
2019 Luminarium 24hr ChoreoFest choreographer
2018 Emerging Choreographer for Sarasota Contemporary Dance
Her films have been shown by Jacob Jonas Company Digital Film Fest 2020, Zoetic Dance Distance Disco, and at the 2021 Alabama Screendance Festival.
Emma is currently creating her new work
I hope we never Land
supported by Decatur School of Ballet and
the Hambidge Center for Arts and Cultural Science.
TRAINING
Emma began her studies after being selected for training at Northwest Florida Ballet Académie, and continued to study ballet through her high school years, culminating with Andrea Hill and Nina Danilova at City Ballet of Wilmington. During her youth training she spent summers with ABT, Ballet Academy of Texas, Ballet Hawaii, University of Oklahoma, and UNCSA.
She received her Bachelors of Arts in Dance Performance and Choreography as well as her Bachelors of Science in Environmental Science from the University of South Carolina in 2018.
At U of SC she studied with Tanya Wideman Davis, Thaddeus Davis, Stacey Calvert, and Shannon Ludlum. Emma performed ballets by George Balanchine and Petipa. She also created roles in works by Bryan Arias, Shaun Boyle, Tanya Wideman Davis, Thaddeus Davis, Madeline Jazz Harvey, and more. She has spent time with Axis Connect, New Dialect, Staibdance, NW Dance Project, and Whim W'him.
Latest Projects
I hope we never Land
a dance work choreographed by Emma Morris starring Maia Charanis, Meg Gourley, and Jodie Jernigan Through the lens of nature, this work will explore how our past selves, our memories, and the stories that we surround ourselves by impact our present. Nostalgic music and personal essays are woven together to create a world where time becomes blurred and reality is suspect.
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SEE THIS WORK
Anthology for Dreamers
Created for Kit Modus in spring 2023, Anthology for dreamers was remounted for the company's 2024 season closing Mixed Rep performance.
Arts ATL's preview of the work
SEE WHAT ELSE EMMA IS UP TO
