From the old practice rooms in Colonial Building, to the Semel Theater, to the Robert J. Orchard Stage at the Paramount Center, Emerson Urban Dance Theatre has performed at Emerson College for two decades. But their first ever stage was just a small multipurpose room in the Max.
Started by just a group of friends in 2006, EUDT has grown bigger than even the founder’s dreams. Today, EUDT is one of two main dance groups at Emerson, along with Emerson Dance Company, which was dormant for a few years at the time of EUDT’s founding. Consisting of three smaller companies — hip-hop, contemporary, and tap — EUDT puts on a semesterly dance production complete with emcees, student-choreographed pieces, and student-created and edited videos between dances.
“It has completely exceeded my expectations,” alum Michael J. Love ‘10, the original founder of EUDT, told The Beacon. “It was just this thing we did, in a sort of scrappy way.”
But the famous double-dance weekend of EUDT and EDC that many Emerson students know and love today didn’t always look like this.
Love started EUDT during his first semester at Emerson. After growing up dancing with a youth ensemble, he started undergrad as a theater studies major. Emerson did not have a dance major and still only offers it as a minor. Looking for a way to revive the campus’ dance community, Love gathered his new Emerson friends and started dancing.
“It was very DIY,” Love said. “When we couldn’t get rehearsal spaces, we rehearsed in the hallway. I carried around a boom box that I saved my money to buy to use for rehearsals. We asked friends to shoot promo photos for us, and we just kind of grew.”
For the first few years, EUDT existed in this DIY space because it was not officially recognized as a student organization until 2012.
For this semester’s dance, EUDT performed “Time & Time Again,” this semester’s theme, to a packed crowd at the Paramount Theatre on April 10. It featured dances across decades and cultures in an “exploration of unity in a time where things can feel so divided,” according to artistic director and sophomore interdisciplinary studies major Jayda Weaver.
“EUDT was built to embrace urban styles of dance, as well as the talent and voices of students of color,” Weaver wrote in her letter from the artistic director this semester. “As much as this theme is about time, it is about culture — how we are influenced by it and how we carry it with us. No matter what we do or where we are, the people that came before us will always influence the decisions we make now.”
The production’s opening was an “homage to Black history,” pairing tap with step, a tradition that relies on rhythms of African movement and was popularized by African American fraternities and sororities. Other pieces portrayed themes of community, love, and connection.
“I think it’s a demonstration of the fact that it was something needed on campus,” Love said, reflecting on the continued growth of EUDT. “It’s a creative outlet for a lot of folks. I’m now a professional, and a few other people have entered the field, so it’s also a training ground of sorts.”
Love is now an assistant professor of dance at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania, and he was recently a 2021-23 Princeton University Arts Fellow. After graduating from Emerson with a degree in marketing communications, Love went on to get his M.F.A. in performance as public practice from the University of Texas at Austin. But prior to this, he said, he really jumped head first into the production side of dance when he started EUDT.
“I learned a lot: how to lead a cast, plan a production, produce curatorial work,” Love said. “We just were figuring it out and it became an avenue for folks to choreograph.”
What Love found, with just a boom box and some hallways to rehearse in, was a longing for dance at Emerson.
“Eventually, we would hold auditions and 50 or 60 people would show up,” he said. “It was crazy.”
Now, EUDT has a strong cohort of 40 or 50 dancers any given semester, with many more auditioning with hopes to join. They have regularly sold out shows at the Semel Theater in previous semesters and performed on a larger stage — the RJO in Paramount — this semester.
“This was a thing we were doing just because we wanted to do it,” Love said. “Maybe we should have been doing our homework, but we were at EUDT rehearsals.”
Since his time at Emerson, hundreds of students have carried on Love’s legacy through EUDT. There’s no telling how much time they’ve spent dancing instead of doing their homework, but they wouldn’t have it any other way, and Emerson is better for it.
