Emma-Louise Jordan is a dancer and a choreographer. Originally from the UK, she studied classical dance in London at the Legat School of Russian ballet and at the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance. As a dancer, she toured Europe with the Midlands Dance Company and the Vienna Festival Ballet and danced in Germany with Ballet Schindowski in Gelsenkirchen, Tanzwerk Nürnberg, and Theater Dortmund, among others. In 1999, she joined the Theater Freiburg with Amanda Miller and the interdisciplinary ballet company Pretty Ugly. Her work as a director and choreographer is not only full of wit and charm, but is also often deeply moving. Emma-Louise works with not just professionals but also amateurs: elderly people, teenagers, and people with and without disabilities. She truly has a gift for helping people express themselves, and we are incredibly lucky to call her our colleague at the Music University of Freiburg.

This conversation with Emma-Louise Jordan took place on December 15th, 2021, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

We spoke to her about:

Emma’s start in the dance world

Not getting into the Royal Ballet and how that changed her life for the better

Discovering modern dance

Being more ambitious about dance than career

The association of classical music with perfect ballet technique

“Functioning” as a dancer beyond the body’s capacity

Learning how to channel her energy to her best use

Working with non-professionals and their refreshing lack of baggage, how it is “almost more of a handicap to have this training”

The utopia of having no exams for dance in a music school

Connecting to breathing

Gyrokinesis®: touching and resonating in the body

Beginning to use her voice after finishing her dance career: movement becoming more creative by voicing things

How she ‘tricks herself’ out of her own habits of creativity

How she facilitates creativity for amateurs, tricking people out of being self-conscious

Integrating music into dance

Giving people security to allow for experimentation

Keeping people in intense movement so they will stay in their bodies, not just in their heads

Some of Emma’s favorite music:

Gavin Bryars: Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet

Bon Iver: Blindsided

Portico Quartet: Knee-Deep in the North Sea

J.S. Bach: Matthäus-Passion, BW 244

J.S. Bach: The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, Glen Gould

The Swingle Singers: Jazz Sebastian Bach