Emily Coates
A dancer, choreographer, and writer, Emily Coates is director of dance studies and professor in the practice in the Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies Program at Yale University.
Dancers and their archives contradict each other: one can never fully satisfy the other. Which is why I was curious to attend the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts 2025 Dance Symposium, dedicated to the legacy of Mikhail Baryshnikov, on January 31 in the Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center.
Nell Breyer and Emily Coates continue their debate, considering recent live and digital dance productions.
What about stating the obvious? When there is significant institutional investment in the performing arts—i.e., France since the 1980s, with their “Centre Chorégraphique Nationaux (CCN)”1—the field radically expands, creators explore, and new dances flourish. The French Dance Reflections Festival in New York this past fall, presented by jewelry company Van Cleef & Arpels, really brought this home to me.
