My name is Emily Kilroy, and I am a second year student with The Ohio State University Department of Dance. I grew up in the small seaside town of Winthrop, Massachusetts only a few minutes from the heart of Boston. As a very young dancer I received training at several local studios as well as at the Boston Ballet School. Upon entering high school, I auditioned for and became a part of the Boston Youth Moves Dance Company. Boston Youth Moves is pre-professional dance program located at the Jeannette Neill Dance Studio. The program focuses on higher-level training and performance opportunities for teen dancers in the Boston area. With this program I trained in jazz, contemporary, tap, ballet, and modern styles. I received impeccable training under teachers including Jeannette Neill, Jim Viera, Tai Jimenez, Susie Michaud, Chris Alloways-Ramsey, and others. The program has alumni who have worked with prestigious companies such as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Radio City Rockettes, Pilobolus, Karole Armitage, and many others. Being so, I was able to have the opportunities to work with and perform pieces by choreographers such as Alvin Ailey’s Kirven Douthit-Boyd, Matt Anctil from Broadway’s La Cage Aux Folles, and several others.
I have attended summer intensives including the Boston Conservatory Summer Dance Intensive, the Boston Conservatory Musical Theater Dance Intensive, the Point Park University International Summer Dance Intensive, and the José Mateo Ballet Theater Summer Dance Program. Some of my performance experiences include dancing in honor of Broadway star Chita Rivera at the Elliot Norton Awards, the Dance For World Community Festival, the Boston Arts Festival, and many other repertory performances with the Boston Youth Moves Dance Company. In the Department of Dance here at OSU I have just recently performed in a work by faculty member Dave Covey and I am currently involved in projects with fellow BFA and MFA students.
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Outside of dance I have extensive training in both figure skating and singing. I spent many years involved in competitive figure skating while training under former Ice Follies skater Lois Ambrose until 2015. I was also involved in vocal lessons and musicals throughout both my childhood and teenage years. I am a playwright, having had some of my 10-minute plays win the Boston University New Noises Young Playwrights' Festival for two years in a row.
Alongside the BFA in dance, I am pursuing a BA in arts management as well as a minor in women’s gender and sexuality studies. In terms of my future in this department, as well as with dance as a whole, I am very interested in focusing my work in both composition and history. I have a deep love for historical research regarding dance as well as the process of creating and manifesting movement. I hope, as I journey forward with my relationship with dance, to venture forward in both of those fields and to possibly find a commonality between the two. I hope in my life to always be involved with the arts in some way shape or form because I truly believe that art and expression are vital to the human soul.