Emily Schoen Branch is a dance artist named “Top 25 to Watch” by Dance Magazine. Baryshnikov Arts Center (New York) chose her as their Martha Duffy Resident Artist for their BAC Space Residency. She won the Gibney Dance boo-koo grant for emerging artist in New York City, a Princess Grace Fellowship nomination by METdance (Texas), and various domestic and international residencies including at the Tunisian National Theater in Tunisia. She has been Artist-In-Residence at multiple organizations, including for Jamaica Center for the Arts and Learning’s Choreographers and Composers series (NYC). She’s fulfilled 19 commissions for companies and university programs throughout the country including Olympic Ballet Theater (Washington), Santa Barbara Dance Theater (California), METdance, Ormao (Colorado), Columbia Ballet Collaborative (New York), among others.
Emily’s former group, Schoen Movement Company, was home to her collaborative and creative endeavors in New York for 6 years. Together, they partnered with dancers from Tunisia for over 2 years, creating an original evening-length work titled “See me in your eye” which premiered in New York in 2019. Baryshnikov Arts Center, Dance Motion USA / Brooklyn Academy of Music, Queens Council for the Arts, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, and the US Embassy in Tunisia supported the project.
They were also presented at various East Coast venues including the iconic Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, the historic Judson Memorial Church, WestFest, Jamaica Performing Arts Center, and Joe’s Pub / DanceNOW.
Beyond the stage, Emily created “A Movement Flight”—a site-specific, happy hour dance performance, crafted for breweries. It has since been adapted for 5 breweries: in New York, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and California.
She currently lives in Seattle where she’s choreographing, teaching, and beginning a fresh chapter since leaving New York during the pandemic. She’s on faculty at Spectrum and Olympic Ballet Theater, where she premiered her first ballet, “She travels softly (through midday light)” in February 2022. Her recent dance film, “Hollow Hearts” debuted in Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Dance Film Festival where received Honorable Mention, and has since been accepted into American Dance Festival’s Movies By Movers.