about Emily

Emily Hansel (she/they) is a San Francisco-based dancer, choreographer, dance teacher, arts administrator, and artist advocate.

Originally from Rochester, Minnesota, Emily received their BFA in Dance from the University of South Florida, where they performed in works by Ohad Naharin, Alonzo King, Robert Moses, Maurice Causey, Bliss Kohlmyer, Paula Nunez, Andrew Carroll, Jeanne Travers, and Xiao Xiang Rong among others and served as President of the Student Dance Production Board. In 2014, Emily attended the American Dance Festival School where she worked with choreographer Carl Flink and performed in his ADF-commissioned piece, Unkindness of Ravens. In 2015, she performed at the International Creative Dance Seminar at the Beijing Dance Academy and traveled to France with USF's Dance in Paris Program. Upon her graduation in 2016, Emily received the awards of USF Undergraduate Scholar, King O'Neal Scholar, and Provost's Scholar. She then relocated to San Francisco.

Emily has danced with SFDanceworks, Post:ballet, Christy Funsch, Mark Foehringer Dance Project, Robert Moses' KIN, Garrett + Moulton Productions, Jennifer Perfilio, FACT/SF, David Herrera Performance Company, ZiRu Dance, The Anata Project, Talli Jackson, Marika Brussel, Alma Esperanza Cunningham, Kristin Damrow & Company, and others. Emily has also performed in Alexandra Pirici’s Re-collection at SFMOMA and in Cunningham repertory in Signals from the West: Bay Area Artists In Conversation with Merce Cunningham at 100.

Emily's choreographic work is centered around dismantling systems of oppression in the contemporary dance field. Emily founded EHC, which has been active in San Francisco since 2016, as a platform for producing their choreographic work and sharing resources with fellow dance artists. Emily recently received an San Francisco Artist award from the San Francisco Arts Commission, was selected to participate in MANCC’s Forward Dialogues program, received an ODC Theater RDI Award, and was named an Individual Artist Fellow by the California Arts Council. While self-producing new shows via EHC, Emily has also created new work for FACT/SF’s Winter Dance Salon, FACT/SF’s Summer Dance Festival, Post:ballet, Berkeley Ballet Theater's Studio Company (in collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Vân-Ánh Võ), REYES Dance’s annual dance film festival, and Lindenwood University Dance Program, among others. Emily has presented work at ODC Theater, the iMPACt Center for Art & Dance, BAMPFA, YBCA Forum, the Joe Goode Annex, SAFEhouse for the Performing Arts, Little Boxes Theater, and other venues throughout the Bay Area.

Through their choreography, writing, speaking engagements, and other creative work, Emily advocates for equitable, ethical, and healthy working conditions for dancers. Emily is a proud member of the Leadership Committee at Dance Artists' National Collective, where they head up DANC's development of a contract-building tool for dancers. Emily is a passionate arts administrator and has worked in administrative roles for a number of artists/companies in addition to producing their own work and running EHC.

Emily occasionally teaches open classes and workshops for professional dancers and has taught ballet and contemporary to students ages 3 through 18 for seven years at Berkeley Ballet Theater, the ODC School, Steppin' Out Dance Studio, and other schools.