The Male Experience in Dance

One of the questions that has stayed with me throughout my career is surprisingly simple:

What does it actually mean to be a man in dance?

My early experience with dance was a little different than what many people imagine. I grew up in environments where there were a lot of boys dancing. Programs like Youth at Risk and Cleveland School of the Arts had strong male participation. Later I trained around companies where men were very present in the room.

So when I was younger, dance didn’t feel like something unusual for men to be doing. It felt physical. Competitive. Expressive. Demanding. It felt like something serious.

That perspective changed when I entered college and began seeing the broader landscape of dance.

In many traditional dance spaces—especially those rooted in ballet—the central stories tend to revolve around a very specific perspective. A lot of the most visible narratives center on female protagonists. Male dancers are absolutely essential in those works, but often in supporting roles.

There’s nothing wrong with that tradition. Those stories are beautiful and meaningful for many people. But as a young artist, it made me realize that the kinds of experiences I had seen growing up—spaces where men were exploring vulnerability, emotion, and identity through movement—weren’t always visible in the larger dance world.

And that stuck with me.

When I first imagined Emotions Physical Theatre, part of what I wanted to explore was that missing space. I was curious about the emotional lives of men—the internal worlds that don’t always get discussed openly.

Men are often taught to move through the world with a narrow emotional vocabulary. Strength, control, composure. Those things can be valuable, but they can also become limitations if they’re the only options available.

Dance has always offered another possibility.

Movement allows emotions to exist without needing to explain themselves. A gesture, a shift of weight, a breath—sometimes those things communicate more honestly than words.

So early on, a lot of my work started asking questions about the male experience. Not in a political way or a theoretical way. Just in a human way.

How do men handle vulnerability? What happens when competition and intimacy collide? What do friendship and loyalty look like between men? Where do fear and tenderness live in the body?

I wasn’t trying to define masculinity. I was trying to explore it.

And the more I explored it, the more complicated the questions became.

Over time, the work expanded beyond just the male experience. Questions about identity, culture, and perception began to enter the choreography as well. But that early curiosity—the desire to examine emotional honesty in male bodies—remains part of the DNA of the company.

Movement gives us a way to see things that people don’t always say out loud.

That possibility continues to shape how I approach choreography today.

Not to present answers.

But to create space where complicated human experiences—especially the ones that are often hidden—can become visible.