About Emma
Emma has 22 years of professional experience as a dancer, teacher and choreographer, and is the creative project manager of Ascendance.
EMMA'S BIOGRAPHY
Current
A return to performance work with Yorkshire Life Aquatic, a three-women cast ‘Million Dollar Mermaid’ performed at Sowerby Bridge Splash festival, mastering the art of using props in live dance theatre.
Led HYBRID dance project with Ascendance community group who were selected for NSCD community platform performing ICEBERG. Shortly after collaborating with Parkinson's UK, for the Jubilee tea party.
Midsummer-inspired 360 dance film for site-specific, inclusive community piece ‘Orchard’. SENSE charity partnership has made a wider impact in the community inviting Aspire members from Rothwell & Garforth to join.
Lifelines abilities group made a live performance return with Expressions festival performing ‘Spill the Tea’ at Northern Ballet.
Dance Tribe were invited to perform at Leeds NHS Menopause Festival & Dance Studio Leeds autumn community platform.
2021-2022
Emma has stepped into her new role as Ascendance creative project manager, devising partnerships with SENSE charity and Fly Girl Films, preparing projects for both Age Proud festival and International Day of People with Disabilities.
In May this year, Emma launched 'Dance Tribe', a high-impact, contemporary dance class for adults. Dance Tribe has been selected to perform in Leeds Dance Partnerships' open day.
Selected by Northern Ballet to create an online film of inclusive group 'Lifelines' for Expressions Dance Festival 2021.
Lead an over-50's Martha to Madonna dance class at Northern Ballet.
Dance piece 'A Journey Through Time', made in 2019 reworked and performed with a new intergenerational cast for Kirkstall Heritage Festival at Kirkstall Forge.
Managed an online project 'Time of Our Lives' commissioned by Hull Dance, mentoring young artists from Hull and Yorkshire, devising and collaborating with Georgia Jakubiak through virtual workshops.
2020
Online guest artist for Hull Dance, speaking live about professional partnerships, community dance projects and the changes and adaptions made to her artistic work.
Ascendance's R&D professional dance workout, working with 360 film artists and other professional dancers.
Online self-care programme run by Creative Well with integrative arts psychotherapist, Roshmi Lovatt—learning fresh approaches to sustaining her online delivery and looking after her own mental health and wellbeing.
2019
Commemorating Hawksworth Memorial Community event with Swarthmore Centre celebrating International Women's Day with real war stories, live music and dance.
2016-2017
Emma connected with international partners Pina Bausch Foundation, Wuppertal, and PACT arts organisation in Essen, Germany whilst also delivering a degree student placement.
2016
Emma was selected to collaborate with Gary Clarke on Coal at National Coal Mining Museum.
2015-2016
Emma was chosen for mentorship with One Dance UK with mentoring from Beth Cassani and Yorkshire Dance. This allowed Emma to trial the initial stages of Blood Memory, performing work at Yorkshire Dance and Kirstall Abbey, performing to families and reaching 5000+ people.
2014
Further opportunities included working alongside Joss Arnott as part of his national tour and working with Gary Clarke to devise a project work shown to degree students about creative industries trajectory.
2013
Commissions included Phoenix Dance Theatre residency, Doncaster University and FlashMob ‘Who R you Talking to?’, a 6-week project for Online Safeguarding with West Yorkshire Police which received press and online coverage.
1998
Emma graduated from NSCD with a Bachelor of Arts Hons Dance Degree. She performed in the number 1 hit ‘Sweet Like Chocolate’, Seven Sisters (site-specific), for the Ascendance rep company working with Gary Clarke (site-specific) and with Gerry Turvey at Tate Gallery and Leeds City Gallery, to name but a few.
I absolutely LOVED LOVED LOVED you helped us to be on fire today and I was obsessed!! Xx
GRAHAM DANCE WORKSHOP
Emma carefully curated a bespoke Graham based workshop to help me celebrate a special birthday. The level suited all abilities as some friends had a dance background and for others it was their first time in a studio. Positive feedback was received from all attendees with some dropping into Emma’s regular workshops post-event. I recommend anyone wanting to add some dance magic to their festivities to consider one of Emma’s bespoke workshops!
PRIVATE GRAHAM WORKSHOP
You are the best dance teacher Emma and beautiful dancer, you have helped me improve so much more than I could have imagined! Xx
TRIBE DANCER
Thank you for such an exhilarating class last night - it felt soooo good to be dancing freely again. I've really missed and your welcoming, infectious energy made it such a joyous session!
TRIBE DANCER
THE CREATIVE TEAM
Emma has been developing her artistic practice through training in music, theatre, site specific and working with community family groups, with support of artists Rachel Wesson at Ascendance and musician, Georgian Jakubiak. Emma's brand and website was created by Sarah Kirkbride at North Story Studio.
