About Study Hall

Emily Hansel, here, to announce that I’m choreographing, directing, and producing a new show and to ask for donations to support the artists involved in the creative process.

The new, evening-length work that I’m creating is called Study Hall and will premiere May 16-18 at the iMPACt Center for Art & Dance in San Francisco. I’ve hired a truly dope team of artistic collaborators for this project including my creative, thoughtful cousin Sophia Cotraccia to compose the musical score, and my distinguished, inventive fellow USF grad Thomas Bowersox to oversee lighting and scenic design.

Study Hall will be performed by four dancers (Rebecca Fitton, gizeh muñiz vengel, Jocelyn Reyes, and Erin Yen) who are absolute powerhouses in terms of their strength as performers as well as their choreographic ingenuity. All four (plus myself) identify as both a) choreographers who hire dancers and b) dancers who are hired by other choreographers. I’ve carefully curated this cast due to their artistic excellence as well as their fierce commitment to forging new models for equity in our field.

Study Hall is oriented around the goal of breaking toxic patterns in our industry and embracing new ways of working. The process and performances will propose and model a new reality that centers equity, health, and sustainability. Over the last couple months, I’ve facilitated a series of Community Study Halls that are designed to bring Bay Area dancers and choreographers/directors together in discussion about cultivating healthy, equitable workplaces in our contemporary dance field. These public conversations have been on topics such as:

• Ownership and credit in collaborative processes
• Building budgets that prioritize dancer pay
• How can we hold decision-makers accountable?

The four Study Hall dancers participated in these public conversations, whose content will both guide our workplace culture and function as source material for movement generation in the studio. We began rehearsals in January and will collaboratively craft Study Hall over the course of five months. The final performances will be humorous and entertaining but also serious and thought-provoking, with the goal of inspiring cultural shift both within the dance ecosystem and beyond.

Photos from Community Study Halls, 2023-2024
Image Description: In the first photo, 8 people sit in a circle of chairs in a dance studio while one person speaks. In the second photo, 3 people sit at a table writing in notebooks. In the third photo, 8 people sit at a table covered in notebooks while talking and smiling at each other.

Why now?

The experimental, justice-driven work behind Study Hall feels urgent. Over the last year, I’ve found myself in lengthy brainstorming conversations with numerous colleagues. It’s clear to me that choreographers and dancers across my community are eager for conversation, experimentation, and concrete action that will push the field forward. We need new practices that can be feasibly implemented to counter oppressive defaults that are often built in to our workplaces. My four dancer collaborators and I are intent on modeling new workplace practices that we can all learn from and/or bring forth into future projects that we lead or participate in. Because the four cast members are leaders/employers/choreographers/directors in their own right, I envision Study Hall having vital consequences for not only us as individuals, but for our Bay Area dance ecosystem at large.

Fundraising needs

↳ I received a generous $20k grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission for Study Hall, which is extremely helpful and also just a huge honor to receive. Woohoo!

↳ BUT. This project is far from fully funded, and in order to make it happen, I need to raise an additional $12,000. I invite you to send a donation of whatever amount feels possible or meaningful to you.

To give you some context, I’ve listed out some amounts and their impacts below:

• $37 covers one dancer in one hour of rehearsal (wages + workers comp + payroll taxes)
• $111 covers hiring one dancer for a full 3-hour rehearsal
• $444 covers one 3-hour rehearsal with all four dancers
• $772 covers my entire general liability insurance policy
• $1,600 covers hiring my entire workers comp policy
• $4,250 covers my performance venue rental

If you’re interested, check out my project budget for more details and insight into the logistics behind Study Hall.

If you’re able to make a monetary contribution, you can send it directly to me via Venmo (@EmilyHansel) or paper check (made out to Emily Hansel and mailed to 475 Arlington St, San Francisco, CA 94131).

If you’d prefer that your donation be tax-deductible, you can donate via my nonprofit fiscal sponsor, FACT/SF, by clicking the button below. If your employer has any type of program that matches donations that you make to nonprofits, please consider taking advantage of the corporate matching program.

Donate

Get to know the artists

Emily Hansel

Emily Hansel is a San Francisco-based choreographer, dancer, dance teacher, arts administrator, and artist advocate. Emily’s choreographic work has been commissioned by a variety of companies and presented at numerous venues throughout the Bay Area. Emily recently received an San Francisco Artist award from the San Francisco Arts Commission, an ODC Theater RDI Award, and was named an Individual Artist Fellow by the California Arts Council.

Aesthetically, her choreographic work is influenced by Gaga, Countertechnique, chance operations, release technique, contact improvisation, and a somatic approach to ballet.

Emily’s creative work is centered around dismantling systems of oppression in the concert dance field. She operates within the anti-oppression frameworks of disability justice, antiracism, and feminism both in terms of the content of her work and the processes by which it is made. She also hopes that, through her creative work, she can empower artists around her to challenge the deeply sown injustices in our field.

You can learn more about Emily by checking out her full bio, her archive of choreographic creations, or clicking around to other parts of her website.

Study Hall dancer-collaborators

Erin Yen is a mixed-race professional dancer and choreographer currently residing in San Mateo, CA. Erin holds a BFA in Dance from the Ohio State University and is the founder of contemporary dance company Dragons Dance.

gizeh muñiz vengel is a Mexican movement, teaching, and performing artist based in Chochenyo Ohlone Land. They are devoted to the study of being a body through movement and stillness while creating creative strategies for building warmer relationships with others, and recognizing the sovereignty and personhood of the land, the waters, and other beings who we coexist with.

Jocelyn Reyes is a Latin American contemporary choreographer and filmmaker based in San Francisco. Informed by her childhood experiences with poverty, domestic abuse, and religion, Reyes’ works reimagine healthier ways of relating to ourselves and others.

Rebecca Fitton is a queer, mixed asian american, disabled, and immigrant person. Their work as an artist, administrator, and advocate focuses on shifting cultural policy, asian american identity, and disability justice. She nurtures community through movement, conversation, and food.

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