Emilee Lord - thINKingDANCE

Articles written by Emilee Lord

Laid in an overlapping line on a white surface are 12 booklets each in a different bright color. The one farthest to the right and in light blue reads in black text Eiko across the top and Otake across the bottom with the word Letters placed above and to the right of center.

To Us/Because of Us

July 29, 2025

“The places we dance or make work or share ideas

Balanced on a fallen tree in a wooded area a dancer poses wearing maroon pants and a blue long sleeved crop top. She balances on her right foot, touching her pointed left foot against the right ankle. Her left hand reaches across her midsection with the hand and fingers spread wide. Her right arm reaches up over her head, fingers spread wide, palm down. She softly gazes down, her mouth relaxed open.

Neighbor Watching

June 18, 2025

For Lorena Marin, multidisciplinary Colombian performance artist and founding director

Two male dancers wear white boxer briefs and white button up shirts. One is standing off to the left, arms at his sides looking over to the other dancer, on the right, seated in one of two black folding chairs that face upstage. His left leg is behind the chair, his right leg out in front, foot flat on the floor. He reaches his right hand out, palm turned down, and his left brushes past his face into his hair. Behind them the left side of a split screen has the image of a shirtless man, with a wide bright streak of yellow light on the upper edge. Over the image are lines of text, unreadable from this distance. On the right screen another man is obscured by the seated dancer. The image is mostly bright yellow with black brush strokes, and is also covered in unreadable lines of text.

Why? And Where Are You?

April 16, 2025

“The Geiger of death crackles through the room.” This line

Two rows of Highland dancers stand in front of the Bethesda Fountain at one of the entrances to Central Park in NYC. There are trees in the background. The dancers are clad in bright plaids and knee socks in orange, red, green, blue, and purple. A few in the first row hold a sign that says Fling Together Collective

Flinging in the Rain

April 11, 2025

I’m pressing through the busy and rain-soaked streets of Manhattan

A photo of a page in the book. A black and white photo of Jill Johnston. She has long hair, aviator sunglasses, and is wearing a white long sleeve button up, a black vest, and a wide striped tie. The photo is cut off at her hips. She leans into her left hip and has her right hand in her pocket. A glass in her left hand.

Interrupting the Paper Daughter

April 3, 2025

I spent these last winter months with Clare Croft and

Against a white background Steve Paxton dances in black pants and a black t-shirt. He is leaning into his left hip, arching the left side of his body away from the hip, arms and hands loosely in the air around his head.

All That History in Those Very Seats

February 20, 2025

I’m in a room I’ve danced in before. It starts

A black background and red arabic lettering in the middle to the left with the translation, haram, written underneath. On the right, a close up of a woman's shoulders, neck, and the lower part of her face. There are dark smudges or bruises on her neck. In fine black lettering above these marks it reads, "You have no idea how much power I hold."

Monologue more than dance

September 29, 2024

Haram, a one-woman dance theater film by Chelsey Fawcett starring Keena Herman,

A woman sits on the stone floor of a long veranda at dusk, illuminated by hanging lanterns. The warm light makes her golden costume glow. Resting on her left hip, her right leg extends behind her, half bent. She looks down her extended right arm, letting her fingers drop toward the floor, while her left hand, at head level, pinches some fingers into her palm, leaving her ring and pinky fingers reaching up.

Classical Storytelling

September 27, 2024

I am often drawn to Indian classical dance forms for their specificities

Writing | Moving | Seeing | Writing

August 19, 2024

I spent the last month diving into, noting in, and

Four New Visions

June 10, 2024

The latest cohort of dance artists in the Fresh Tracks

The Kinetic, the Femme, The Political: Lineage in motion.

May 8, 2024

It’s one thing to notice how and where you are

Steve Paxton (1939-2024) from the tD Archive

February 29, 2024

Postmodern dance lost a great one on February 21st. Steve Paxton,

“Border Crossings” Reveals Historic Erasures in American Modern Dance

February 16, 2024

What images come to mind, and who do you picture

Questions for the Disruption of Harm – an interview with Whistle

February 11, 2024

Whistle co-founders Robyn Doty and Frances Chiaverini launched their final

Edges of Koma Otake

December 30, 2023

Koma Otake slowly shuffles backward from the shadows into the

Everything is HEBEL

October 30, 2023

A prologue: darkness. One spotlight all the way downstage. Dancer

Stories from the Body

July 7, 2023

Triple Solo Bill was an evening of performances for PrideFest

Access and Artistry: Part 3 – Audio Description

July 6, 2023

In my interviews with Peter Trojic and Krishna Washburn, enough was said about

Somatic/Political/Human/Russian

June 18, 2023

I do not often leave a show this gently stunned

Access and Artistry: Part 2 – a conversation with Dancer and Accessibility Director Peter Trojic

May 29, 2023

To further unpack the issues facing disabled artists in live

Access and Artistry: Part 1 – a conversation with Dancer and Educator Krishna Washburn

May 17, 2023

To focus a lens on accessibility in performing arts, this

October 24, 2022

The Trace of An Implied Presence is a multichannel video installation

October 3, 2022

This new self-titled work by French choreographer Jérôme Bel consists of a

Magnum Opus: I hate my work

September 23, 2022

You are outside at the MAAS Building garden, birds sing,

Talking Screen Dance: an Interview with Dancing Through The Lens

August 18, 2022

After spending an engaging few weeks listening to their podcast,

Embodying Marks: Dance Notation and Scores in Conversation

July 29, 2022

“We envision information in order to reason about, communicate, document,

Fold, Lose, Clean, Speak, Bury

May 27, 2022

The set was a stark hospital room with an opening

The Magical Realism in TRIBE’s Black Hole

April 28, 2022

There’s a shifting amorphous form far downstage as the audience

Performing Their Power

April 10, 2022

The theme this year for the biennial dance on screen

March 15, 2022

All the way upstage, in a line, stands a piano,

The Politics of Our Comfort

January 27, 2022

Sometimes, work calls us to remember just how human we

Find Have Remember Lose Keep

October 30, 2021

“Gathering Space is a chapbook, a non-virtual place for sharing ideas

Take It Off (hers/ours/yours)

October 2, 2021

Naked Dances In My Basement starts with home video footage of

I Was Waiting For You

September 12, 2021

The installation in the gallery was made up of objects

Mirror! Light! Action!

September 10, 2021

I entered the space with the piece already happening in

An Ungainly Kind of Gorgeous

September 10, 2021

It starts with a light coming straight down on a

Ethics in Art and Money

July 31, 2021

There are a lot of institutions, thINKingDANCE included, that are

Dancing Our Fullest

July 16, 2021

There is a pervasive and antiquated assumption in the field

Improvisation in the Virtual Frame

March 19, 2021

January and February, synonymous with freezing temperatures and short days,

Care in Conversation

February 24, 2021

As I write this it has been roughly one year

‘Take Me Apart’ — A Fierce and Playful Exploration of the Feminine

January 18, 2021

2020 brought us a whole new set of definitions for

The Shim Sham Shimmy for a Holiday Win

December 20, 2020

The Lady Hoofers Tap Ensemble’s annual THE TAPCRACKER is online this year,

Of an Era, Of a Moment, Of a Lifetime

October 20, 2020

In May 2020, seventy former Merce Cunningham Company members joined forces to