eMotion Arts: A Conversation with Mariana Sobral and Susannah Faulkner by DANCERS' GROUP STAFF
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CONTENTS
in public policy and advocacy (specifically youth mental health advocacy). Dance gives expression beyond the other parts of our lives. Having different abilities and capabili- ties are not always embraced in ballet, but everyone at eMotion Arts comes together around the belief that everything we do can relate to dance. That’s really our collective relationship to dance as a company. Mariana: I believe that dance can be a ref- uge, and when I’m dancing I can be me, but when I was getting started I felt like I had to choose between ballet or modern (I couldn’t do both). When I started I had a typical ballerina look (you could even tell I was a ballet dancer when I was walking). Because of that it was hard to break into mod- ern—teachers would tell me that I looked too much like a ballerina. Again, Mikhail Baryshnikov was a big inspiration for me when he started doing more modern dance. He showed that it was ok for ballet danc- ers to do modern, and it was ok for modern dancers to have ballet training. Dance was a way to find what acceptance truly meant at a young age and that inspired the creation of eMotion Arts. What do you do outside/beyond dance (how do you spend other parts of your life)? Mariana: I have two Marianas: the social psychologist and dancer and the bookkeeper and HR professional. I work in tech and aerospace and I’ve always taught dance. I teach every day. I think of myself as an artist who does bookkeeping, an artist that does HR. I am not a bookkeeper who dances. Everything I do is part of who I am, but my
way of thinking and how I approach things is rooted in a creative way. I try to bring all aspects of myself together as much as I can. Susannah: For all of my 20s I was trying to make myself into a public policy advo- cate and researcher and let dance become a hobby. I was always teaching, doing gigs and freelance work, but I could never quite let dance become a hobby. Now I say I’m an artist and an advocate. I find a way to bring dance into whatever I’m doing. I’ve learned that there are some things that you can’t escape because it’s so fundamental to who you are, and for me dance is fundamental to who I am. Now I’m trying to integrate it all together. Mariana: I call our style contemporary ballet because it has such a strong ballet influence. We use the language of ballet to explore new themes that ballet has not traditionally worked in. I strongly believe that we need to bring ballet into 2019, espe- cially through the themes being explored. eMotion Arts works on topics like immigra- tion, mental health, acceptance, and one- ness. We’re trying to break from ballet’s demand for uniformity into oneness where we can all dance together without losing ourselves by trying to look exactly the same as the dancers around us. I think of this idea in the same way as English speakers don’t just keep writing Lord Byron and Shake- speare. We can be current. In exploring these tough themes we can give the audience seeds of ideas and provoke conversations. Describe eMotion Arts’ work or choreographic style.
Artistic Director Mariana Sobral and Assistant Director and Company Manager Susannah Faulkner discussed their company eMotion Arts with Dancers' Group. eMotion Arts is a contemporary ballet company in their second season with a mission of spreading a message of Oneness through dance. The company’s goal is to create and showcase a cohesive body of work that highlights and celebrates Oneness by bringing together dancers, artists, and their unique styles. How did dance enter your life? (when, where) Mariana: For me, it was a typical start. When I was five years old in Argentina I saw Baryshnikov’s Nutcracker on TV, and I fell in love. I wanted to do what I saw on the screen, but I didn’t start dance classes for six more years. Eventually my mother was able to figure out how to make dance classes work financially, and I started movement classes first. I didn’t start ballet classes until I was 11 years old. I have tried every artis- tic expression you can imagine, and I think dance stuck because it was the way I was most authentically able to express myself. Susannah: It was similar for me. On my first birthday I went to see The Nutcracker in my hometown, Erie, Pennsylvania, and I haven’t stopped dancing since. I started creative movement classes when I was four years old. Please share any stories about your relationship to dance. Susannah: Mariana has a background in social psychology, and I have a background
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ON THIS PAGE / eMotion Arts
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