How Emotions Physical Theatre Began

Emotions Physical Theatre didn’t begin as a brand or a business plan. It began as a need.

As a teenager, I knew I wanted to choreograph. I wanted to make work. I wanted a company. But what I didn’t yet understand was why. Now, more than a decade later—thirteen seasons in—I can see that the work was never really about ambition. It was about finding stability, understanding, and a way to stay connected to myself and to other people.

I’m forty-one now, living a version of the life my younger self once imagined. I still carry that sixteen-year-old with me—the curiosity, the questions, the refusal to fully accept the roles handed to me. Emotions Physical Theatre grew out of that tension: between who I was expected to be and who I kept trying to become.

I say we because this company has never been a solo effort. My wife has been my closest collaborator from the beginning—through instability, illness, sacrifice, and growth. Season 13 exists because of partnership, patience, and shared belief, not individual heroics.

Like many artists, I had moments that forced me to stop and ask difficult questions. Experiences that disrupted how I understood myself and the world. I sometimes call it my “Batman moment”—not because it was cinematic, but because it demanded training, reflection, and access to tools. It pushed me toward curiosity instead of certainty. Toward questions instead of answers.

I think that curiosity is why children often make art more freely than adults. As we grow older, we learn limits. We learn how the world sees us, what is acceptable, what is rewarded. Slowly, many people give up hope or imagination—not out of weakness, but out of adaptation. I’ve done that in some areas of my life. But art became the place where I resisted it.

Movement was the first language. Dance gave me regulation, release, and grounding when words weren’t enough. Storytelling came later—not as performance, but as a way to make sense of experience. Practice mattered more than product. Repetition mattered more than perfection.

The kind of work my wife and I are drawn to—whether in dance, film, or theater—is narrative-driven and deeply human. I’m not interested in clean heroes or clear villains. I’m interested in people colliding with one another while trying to protect themselves, meet their needs, and survive with dignity. The work we make isn’t meant to preach or moralize. It’s meant to humanize.

Emotions Physical Theatre officially began in 2013, but its deeper origin is older than that. It lives in the ongoing effort to use art as a tool for wellness, empathy, and connection. To make emotions visible—not as spectacle, but as lived experience.

This company continues to grow because the questions continue to grow. There was never an arrival point. Only practice.