Artist of the Week Emily Lathers ’25: Dance Histories, Community, and Movement Memories

“The ways that we’re taught to move in the studio, as people in the world, show the story we bring with us.”

Emily Lathers is an honors history major and dance minor, a course major in dance, and a fantastic individual. Having done ballet since kindergarten, and majoring in dance at a performing arts high school for four years, Emily came to Swarthmore ready to start a new chapter. “I came in thinking I was going to major in history. I thought I would only do dance as an extracurricular,” they said. But the Dance Department pulled them in. Thinking about exclusively pursuing history, Emily said, “I quickly realized that I wanted to do more than that.” Thankfully, balancing history and dance was possible at Swarthmore. Emily said, “I’m able to do both simultaneously with equal rigor, rather than just choosing one.”

Emily reflected on what made them go further into dance at Swarthmore. They told me, jokingly, “I couldn’t get away!” Emily said that the people they met in the Dance Department were a major factor in their deeper pursuit of dance. They told me, “The community in the department has really grown since my freshman fall, and I was making all these friends who I value inside the studio.” They said that the people in their dance classes became creative collaborators and treasured connections outside of classes.

Emily added that the supportive community draws them to dance as a whole. They said, “The feeling that you get when there’s a group of people in the studio, and the energy that’s created there, is something really unique.” Emily said it was the intersection of different styles that brought new meaning to their recent dance experiences at Swarthmore. Emily said, “Sometimes there’s a disconnect between dancers of different styles. Like only ballet people hang out with ballet people, and so forth.” They talked about alum Max Winig ’24, whose project “Voyager” in the spring of 2024 helped break down some of those barriers. Emily said, “That was a moment where we really all coalesced around something that was all very special to us.” 

For Emily, not only did the people in the dance department draw them to the art but so did the act of dancing itself. Emily said, “Oftentimes I struggle with words and finding the right ones to express what I’m feeling.” They continued that dance gives them a realm where they can create in a specific way. Emily said, “A lot of people say that dance is a language to express what words can’t allow you to. And I’m like, ‘Well, maybe.’ But I also think there is something really unique about what comes out, given the space to move in that way.” They also said that examining methods of movement in dance and life is critical. They told me, “Recognizing that we’re all moving all the time and the ways we’re taught to move in, the ways that we move in the studio is just as important.”

As a double dance and history major, Emily finds that these fields beautifully complement one another. When talking about the connection, Emily said, “Considering the histories in our bodies has been a way to bridge that gap.” In their work in the history department, Emily said that “Thinking about the living humans behind the stories is absolutely crucial for me.” For them, dance helps them “connect with the human part.” 

When talking about dance histories, Emily explained that examining dance “family trees” offers valuable insights into each dancer’s history of movement. They said, “You can trace all your teachers, and their teachers, and their teachers, and so on. You can trace the different styles – the forms, ballet, modern, tap, or jazz – that they’ve been taught and that they teach. And you can sort of trace, ‘Oh, my teacher taught me to do this this specific way because their teacher taught them to do that.’ It’s a sort of genealogy of movement.” Emily said that they found these helpful in showing that no one’s taught within a vacuum: “People are actively choosing how to teach, what to teach, what to make, if they’re doing choreography, all as part of it. Nothing is neutral.”

Right now, Emily is working on a senior dance project titled “To find again.” In a collaborative dance project taking place at dusk on April 5, Emily has invited multiple dancers to remember specific movement phrases that they’ve performed or done at some point in their lives. They continued, “They’ve been invited to see how movements feel in their body now, in their current body.” Exploring the interconnectedness of memory and movement, Emily recounted that rehearsals have been “very emotional.” They said, “People never really get rid of the things they’ve experienced, you know, they carry them with them. All of that adds up to make us the dancers and the people that we are.”

Emily’s philosophy of movement can teach us a lot about what it means to remember and forget. Through dance, Emily Lathers has been able to pursue the essence of what makes us human: our experiences with the people around us. I would encourage all of you reading this to embrace the opportunity to watch Emily Lathers’ senior dance project, “To find again,” on April 5. More details below:

https://swatcentral.swarthmore.edu/?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D1261905591