Born and raised in Santa Fe, NM, Emma (Em) Lawrence (she/her) is entering her final year at Smith College, majoring in Dance and American Studies. At Smith College, she has performed in works by Chris Aiken, Rodger Blum, Sarah Lass, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, as well as performing and producing her own choreography and her peers'. She fell in love with dance with mentor Allegra Lillard and trained at the National Dance Institute of New Mexico. There, she performed works by guest artists, including Ann Reinking, Dana Tai Soon Burgess, Francisco Gella, and Penny Saunders. She has attended summer intensives at Urbanity Dance, Walnut Hill School for the Arts, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance. In the fall of 2020, she completed an International Dance Certification program with Pizarts Dance Gap Year, and most recently, she worked as a Public Relations intern at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. She loves to write poetry, make collages, and create dances with her friends. Right now, she is researching the intersections of dance and the radical imagination through folklore, storytelling, song, and dance!