We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Emmy Wildermuth a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Emmy, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

About a year ago, my artistic collaborator, Catherine Messina, and I founded our choreographic festival, unKEMpT, with the mission to uplift new choreographic voices regardless of their access to resources. Along with this festival, we hosted our first affordable class series, which would later come to be called the Wild.Mess Affordable Class Series. We saw a need for financially accessible dance training and decided to combine our passion for the art form as well as our love for fostering community into something that would soon become the most fulfilling and exciting project that I’ve worked on since moving to New York City.

While I love performing and being in a choreographic process, there is something so uniquely beautiful about bringing the dance community together for a day of dance. The feedback we have received has ranged from excitement about taking new forms that dancers wouldn’t have been able to afford otherwise to people who had stepped away from dance for a while and this series gave them the push to get back into it. It is so incredible to watch artists come together to move, create new connections, and support one another.

We are so grateful to all of the teachers who have dedicated their time, talent, and artistry to making this possible. We also cannot thank our community enough for their support at each and every series. I cannot help but smile now thinking about the joy that radiates through the room and I am so excited for this project to continue to grow.

I’ve learned a lot from this process, but my biggest takeaway would be to search for a community that strives to uplift and support you. And if you can’t find it, create it! There are so many beautiful and kind people in this field and I am so lucky to have met so many artists I have come to call my friends.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hello! My name is Emmy Wildermuth. I grew up in Littleton, Colorado. I graduated from the University of Oklahoma with degrees in Modern Dance Performance and Professional Writing. Now, I live in New York City where I work as a freelance dancer, choreographer, and writer. I am currently dancing with Kizuna Dance, rogue wave, and NewBrese Dance Project and creating for my own dance collective called dance.WILD.

As a creator, I am primarily interested in highly physical movement that incorporates elements of theatricality and narrative. I strive to discover a way to provide an entry point for non-artists to enter into artistic conversation.

Most of my work is inspired by the ludicrosity of the human experience in comparison to the natural world and animal kingdom. I thoroughly enjoy watching silly little humans live their silly little lives. I am deeply intrigued in the human experience and breaking down why we do the things we do. What are similar, universal experiences that we all have encountered? What senseless traditions/social etiquette do we embody and where did these tendencies originate? What traits, interests, actions, habits, etc. make us unique? How do we leave a legacy, and who do we trust to carry on our story after our time on this earth is up? The human experience is rich with art that begs to be expressed.

In addition to creating through dance, I am also a writer. I love the act of capturing and sharing stories with other people. No two people in the history of humanity will ever experience this world in exactly the same way. My mission is to capture as many of these experiences as I can and share them with those who are willing to listen. In my more recent works, I have worked to find an intersection between these two interests. I have started incorporating scripted scenes, character development, and text to explore how to infuse abstract movement with tangible narrative.

My work has translated to staged works as well as various dance films. The medium of film is fascinating to me as a creator because it allows me to pursue the depths of my curiosities in a new and exciting way. Through film creation, I have had the pleasure of exploring new spaces, working with new collaborators of different artistic mediums, and learning about the possibilities that lay behind the lens. I am excited to continue to choreograph, direct, and edit films in pursuit of presenting dance through a different platform.

Though I love to perform and create, the most fulfilling part of my career thus far has been curating and coordinating festivals and class series. My artistic collaborator, Catherine Messina and I work together to curate an emerging artist festival called the unKEMpT Dance Festival. The mission of this festival is to provide opportunities for emerging choreographers, regardless of their access to resources. We seek to uplift and build community among New York artists. It has been a joy to watch this festival develop and hear feedback from the choreographers as they present their new works. In conjunction with this festival, we have also developed the Wild.Mess Affordable Class Series. Through this series, we host New York teaching artists from a variety of dance styles and offer classes at an affordable rate. We also teach a contemporary partnering class as part of the series. This event never fails to bring a big, fat, stupid smile to my face that I can’t seem to shake for hours after. I am so grateful for the opportunity to meet fellow movement artists and build a community of people with similar ideals.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

When I was growing up, I was constantly told that my dance career was on a strict timeline. I was under the impression that if I wasn’t successful and dancing in a structured company by the time I was 20 years old, I was a failure. The idea that my career would come to a close because of my age was mortifying to me when I graduated college and moved into the professional world—my clock was ticking and I had no grasp on what my next step would be.

As I entered into the professional world, I quickly realized the inaccuracy behind this understanding of the world. The beautiful thing—and also terrifying thing—about being a working artist is the realization that we are all on our own timeline. No two careers are going to directly reflect one another. Our journeys are an accumulation of our experiences, and I cannot expect mine to look the same as anybody else’s. My clock is not ticking. I am on my own journey with my own setbacks and successes waiting to be had. I have so much left to learn and there is time to learn it. I have barely scraped the surface of what it means to be a movement artist, and I am exhilarated to keep digging deeper.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I passionately believe that the key to fostering a creative society lies within the youth. As children, we all have the instinct to create—whether that’s coloring, dancing, building, or singing, children have a rich appreciation for the creative. Throughout our lives, these creative impulses are all too often squeezed out of us. At some point or another, children are told to sit still, think more practically, and color inside the lines. They are told to leave behind their artistic desires and choose to pursue what the rest of society has told them holds value.

However, there are a few of us who make it out on the other side, lucky to still find the joy in creating. As artists, it becomes our mission to encourage the youth to hold onto their own creative spark. If we fuel a love for art from a young age, these children will eventually grow up with an understanding of the value of creativity as a part of the human experience. The best way to cultivate a thriving creative ecosystem is to develop programs that allow children to enter the creative world from a young age.

I also think it’s important to remind adults of the joy that art can elicit. No matter your profession, I think it’s vital that everyone has a creative outlet. From painting to music making to knitting to jewelry making, there is abundant opportunity for creativity-based hobbies. We must discover new ways to introduce and encourage these hobbies as a part of the population’s general well-being. The best way to grow an appreciation of art is through example and experience.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @wild.em and @dance.wild_
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCykuOPSICtIu0ffl-FQ1EMw
• Other: Email: [email protected]

Image Credits
Jennifer Katzman — Katzman Photography Emma Iskowitz Brian Curry Leighann Kowalsky