Meet Emily Coates, who's danced with New York City Ballet, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Twyla Tharp. And, now she's a full time student at Yale!

In her most recent appearance with Tharp, The New York Times described her as "coolly elegant . . . with a body that seems capable of doing anything." Clement Crisp, the noted British critic, said "Emily Coates is an elegant performer, a worthy partner for Baryshnikov. . ."

Finis: Well, Emily, after seeing you onstage, and watching you work in my ballet class, I agree with the reviewers. Besides a refined technique and all that goes with it, you have a sense of self that is quietly evident. You have your own way of moving the air about you that is compelling. It's no wonder you've been dancing with the greats.

Tell us about your beginnings.

Emily: I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and then moved to Pittsburgh at age 2. From age 4-6 my family lived in Brussels, Belgium, which is where I started dancing (early movement classes in French at the Brussels Women's Club.) Back to Pittsburgh after that, where I began to study ballet at a small school in the suburbs that taught the Royal Academy of Dance method. Every spring, an examiner arrived from London to judge our technical abilities and performance skills. I think doing those examinations at such a young age helped me get over any kind of stage fright - I don't get nervous on stage, now. Nothing compares to being 8 years old, facing a stern British woman who is scrutinizing your turnout!

At age 12, I moved downtown to study at Pittsburgh Ballet Theater, under Patricia Wilde (artistic director) and David Holliday. There, I performed in the Nutcracker as a Candy Cane and later, with the company in Western Symphony and Giselle. I attended summer programs at the School of American Ballet (SAB) for three years before deciding to move to New York to study at SAB full-time. I finished my last two years of high school at the Professional Children's School.

Finis: So, you naturally moved right on, into the New York City Ballet?

Emily: Right after the final spring workshop performance, my senior year of high school, Peter Martins told me that I was invited to be an apprentice with the company. And about a year after that, I received my corps contract. I danced with NYCB for six years. The 5th year, I was in a piece by a French choreographer named Angelin Preljocaj, who had been invited by Peter Martins to choreograph a work for the 1997 Diamond Project. This piece pretty much changed my life.

Finis: I saw that ballet with you in it, and although I didn't know what was going on all the time, I couldn't keep my eyes off you.

Emily: We wore ballet slippers, not pointe shoes; and the choreography was contemporary, not at all classical. I basically fell in love with modern dance in the process of making that piece. Angelin told us in the beginning of the rehearsal process that he wanted to make the piece around our personalities; he wanted to get to know each of us as individuals. I almost cried! His interest in our humanity really spoke to me.

In the same rehearsal period, we were rehearsing Sleeping Beauty - I was learning one of the solo Fairy variations. I spent the first half of the day with Angelin and his rehearsal director, Naomi, exploring their very organic version of humanity, and then crossed the hallway to the other studio for the second half of the day, where much of the time was spent straightening out lines and making sure everyone had their arms in the same position, and working to technically perfect, almost militantly, my Fairy variation. The contrast in atmosphere between the two studios was illuminating -- I began to feel like pointe shoes and classical ballet were far too restricting to my natural way of moving and to my personality, and did not offer what I was interested in getting out of dance. And I started to feel like I didn't fit in at NYCB anymore. It was a strange feeling - I had really believed in myself as a part of New York City Ballet for so many years, but suddenly I began to doubt my own place there. It was a difficult decision to make, and it took over a year to do it, but I ended up leaving the company to explore modern dance and find something more me -- very idealistic goals.

Finis: But I'm sure you learned a lot, performing as much as you did at City Ballet?

Emily: NYCB seems like a very long time ago. It was my first job, so in many ways it was simply about learning out how to be a professional dancer, which included figuring out who I was as a dancer and what I wanted to get out of dancing. I went into the situation thinking that I was every ounce a ballerina and came out six years later thinking, "I know that I'm a dancer, but maybe the tutu and the tiara don't interest me so much…" That was a revelation I never anticipated. I also performed A TON there during the season, so being on stage was sort of like walking down the street - performing that much makes you fearless. There's no preciousness about the night's performance, when there are thirty more where that one came from.

Finis: Yes, that's one distinct advantage of being in City Ballet; you probably get more actual stage time than dancers in any other company in the world.

Emily: One more important thing about NYCB – working with Jerome Robbins made a big impression on me. His coaching, the characters that he sought to pull out of us, the individuality that he cultivated in his work; all of those things really pushed me, and kept me interested. He was extremely demanding, but that's really the only way that you grow, by being pushed beyond what you thought you could do. I loved working with him. I learned a great deal about being a real person while dancing from him. I left the company one month after he died.

Finis: Did you have a favorite ballet?

Emily: Oh, all of the classics. Serenade, The Four Temperaments, Concerto Barocco, Square Dance, Jewels, to name a few. I love the kind of abstracted emotion these conjure up. And I love the characters and humanity in the Robbins' repertory - 2 & 3 Part Inventions and Dances at a Gathering are special favorites. Do you notice a theme?! An emphasis on humanity, individuality, a strong sense of person - these ideas are really important to me, both in the work that I prefer to dance and in the work (and dancers) that I like to watch. Human beings are such beautiful creatures, with all of their idiosyncrasies. Put them on stage moving, and what more do you need?! Technical virtuosity only goes so far with me -- I get bored quickly. But give me real people out there, with texture and depth and maturity, and I'm in tears.

Finis: Me, too! So, how did you make the switch from City Ballet to modern dance?

Emily: Exploring modern dance meant first taking class -- I had a little modern dance training from my Pittsburgh Ballet Theater School days, but nothing since moving to NYC. So I started out taking all around town, at Trisha Brown's studios, a Limon class, and some of those somewhat formless but helpful classes at Dancespace. I ended up on scholarship at Cunningham; I felt the most comfortable within his technique, because in many ways it was the most similar to ballet. In that time, Misha (Baryshnikov) offered me a job with White Oak Dance Project. So I started working with White Oak in November of 1998 and stayed for four years, until the company folded in November 2002.

Finis: That was a job to kill for. What was it like?

Emily: Heaven, in many ways! White Oak was an incredible lesson in dance and performance. I think I developed a much stronger stage presence, given the opportunity to perform without the extreme technical demands of ballet. I was also exposed to a wide range of modern dance choreography, new and old -- Trisha Brown, John Jasperse, Erick Hawkins, Yvonne Rainer, Lucinda Childs, Mark Morris, to name a few. You learn a kind of flexibility of interpretation; you become adept at translating ideas, when you are exposed to so many different visions, movement vocabularies and styles. White Oak was kind of a tasting menu of modern dance, which suited my original plan, to "explore modern dance," perfectly. And a lot of the pieces were very theatrical, which I loved.

The atmosphere was really comfortable, too. The group when I first joined was made up of four other women who had been dancing much longer than I had -- all gorgeous modern dancers that I learned a lot from watching and working with -- and Misha. It felt like it was really about enjoying the dancing, as well as enjoying everything else in life, like the great meal right after the performance and the museum you visited that day in, say, Prague. And of course, dancing with Misha was a completely unique dance education.

Finis: How so?

Emily: If you've ever played tennis - it was like playing tennis with a stronger partner who forces you to "up" your game. It's hard to explain. I thought a lot about my stage presence, dancing with Misha. On stage, he occupies a great deal of space by doing very little - he's a very internal performer (maybe different than his younger days). Faced with his experience and greatness, my main resource was to muster up as much of myself as I could - stand my own ground beside him, so to speak, as firmly as possible. I very consciously had to grow up as a performer.

Finis: Well, it's obvious you did. Lucky you!

Emily: I had also done a little work with Twyla's group in 2001 and loved it, so after White Oak ended I took a job with her touring company last year (2002) and worked with that group until this fall.

Finis: And what was that like?

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