Emily Coates

Lecturer, Theater Studies, Artistic Director, World Performance Project

emily.coates@yale.edu
Web Page:http://pantheon.yale.edu/~ecc34

Emily Coates received the School of American Ballet Mae L. Wein Award for Outstanding Promise in 1992 and joined New York City Ballet that same year. She subsequently transitioned into contemporary dance as a member of Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project (1998 – 2002), Twyla Tharp Dance (2001 – 2003), and Yvonne Rainer (2005 – present). Career highlights include three duets with Baryshnikov: Mark Morris’ The Argument, in Karole Armitage’s The Last Lap, and Erick Hawkins’ Early Floating, principal roles in works by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and Twyla Tharp, Lucinda Childs’ solo Carnation, Yvonne Rainer’s 21st century creations, and Christopher Janney’s solo HeartBeat. 

In her own work, she tries to integrate whenever possible movement research, choreography, and writing. Her interests include the aesthetics and evolution of postmodern dance, intercultural collaboration, and contemporary African dance. Recent projects include co-directing the dance theater laboratory MIND (Motion in Dialogue) with Bronwen MacArthur, in residence at Yale 2005 - 2009; Empty Is Also, created in collaboration with Israeli sculptor Tamar Ettun and commissioned by Performa 09 to critical praise; and an ongoing, multi-sited research project on intercultural collaboration undertaken with Lacina Coulibaly, an artist based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Their joint-creations include the development of a duet titled Ici Ou Ailleurs, and a new work commissioned by Ballet Memphis titled Où Que Nous Soyons. She has published essays in Theater, Transformations, and PAJ. With Joseph Roach, she is co-editor of Theater’s 2010 issue on postglobal dance.

She is the artistic director of Joseph Roach's World Performance Project and a lecturer in Theater Studies at Yale University, where she supervises the dance studies curriculum. She graduated magna cum laude with a BA in English from Yale ’06 and holds an MA in American Studies from Yale ’11.