We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Meaghan Novoa. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Meaghan below.

Hi Meaghan, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

Over the past ten years, I’ve had the opportunity to share in many meaningful artistic processes as a dancer and choreographer, including concert dance, festivals, film, TV, and multimedia collaborations. I’ve performed in places such as theaters, galleries, warehouses, and gardens and danced in closets, creeks, and on the edge of a cliff for dance films. This being said, it’s really hard to narrow down just one meaningful project, when they have been so different. It would be like comparing apples and atriums.

For the sake of the question though, I’ll share about my most ambitious collaboration to date, which came to fruition in June 2021 while I was living in Boise, Idaho.

Through a mutual friend, I met musician and video art projection creator, Sean Dahlman, and started following him on Instagram. This collaboration simply started by my commenting on a video he had created and posted on Instagram in fall 2020. This led to many a conversation where we formed the idea to create an immersive show that encapsulated our collective experiences during the months we had spent at home at the start of the pandemic. It quickly became apparent that we worked well together and found a natural flow in our creative process.

Fast forward 9 months later, with Covid restrictions loosening and our cast of musicians and dancers (and ourselves) fully vaccinated, we were able to premiere our evening length performance, “Anagnorisis,” (named after a plot point in literature where the main character makes a crucial self discovery) with two sold-out shows June 24th & 25th, 2021. This show included contemporary dance that I choreographed with the dancers, original music created by Sean and two other musicians, Anthony Parry and Seth Graham, as well as original video projection by Sean, a painting by visual artist Sean Ahern (that he very generously allowed us to set on fire and film), and a spoken word/narration written by Brooklyn-based poet Davina Hart.

Apart from the opportunity to work with so many talented people, what felt most special to me about this performance was how well the culmination of so many different elements and artists came together so seamlessly without feeling forced. 13 very different people, who had for the most part only met months earlier, came together in the most synergistic way with no interpersonal conflict and all 1000% invested in the process and presentation of our efforts. The care that we all put into holding space for everyone’s ideas spilled over into the performance that really made it a special experience for our audience members and everyone involved.

I have since moved away from Boise and back home to Atlanta, but the memory and lessons learned from this project still gives me so much pride and joy to this day.

Sean and I have since collaborated on two other projects and are about to start our fourth collaboration together that will premiere June 2023.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a contemporary dancer and choreographer. I have been performing since 2013 and started creating my own choreography in 2017. I enjoy multi media collaborations and focusing on themes of mental health, cultural identity, and social justice in my choreography.

I never expected to do this as a career as someone who danced off an on as a kid and it wasn’t until my senior year of high school that I decided to pursue dance seriously. At 18, I was offered a job in a newly formed contemporary ballet company, Southern Arc Dance Theatre, in my hometown of Newnan, GA and the rest is history.

When I later moved to Atlanta for the first time at 19, I started dancing with City Gate Dance Theater and Room To Move Dance Company, where I was inspired to start creating my own choreography. I’m forever grateful to Jennifer Davis and Amy Gately (directors of CGDT & RTMD respectively) for believing in me enough to give me my first opportunities to choreograph.

Since then I’ve received choreographic commissions from dance companies such as Idaho Dance Theatre and Open Arms Dance Project and have presented my work at festivals such as The Modern Atlanta Dance Festival (2018 & 2022), Fertile Ground Festival (2019), Mixtape Dance Festival (2021), and Treefort Music Festival (2021) as well as grants from Idaho Commission On The Arts (2020 & 2021) and Boise City Department Of Arts & History (2021). I’ve been awarded Artist Residencies from organizations such as MING studios, Surel’s Place, LED Boise, and Dance Canvas/Atlanta Contemporary.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Without a doubt the most rewarding thing about this career to me is getting to meet people who feel touched by the work I’ve shared with them and to share processes with other artists. I make dances because I often find it difficult to express myself and connect with others, so it offers me another avenue to feel a part of the world around me.

I also love that creating choreography offers me the opportunity to imagine and create my own ideal world where I have the agency to share universal stories from my perspective as a queer, non binary person. I didn’t get the chance to express this part of me early on in my career as a dancer, so it feels validating to have this opportunity now as a choreographer.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

Twyla Tharp’s book, “The Creative Habit” is the first that comes to mind. There are many lessons dancers and non dancers can take from her writing but the essence of this book to me is to invest time in discovering yourself and nurture your own instincts.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.novoadances.com
• Instagram: @novoadances
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@novoadances

Image Credits
Photos by James Ramspott, Cody Jacques, Zachary Sun, Malika DeShon. Photos courtesy of Movement Arts Atlanta, Bautanzt Here, and Professional Bodies