Gianna Burright, MADCO Guest Choreographer: St. Louis Dancescapes

I think it's tied into, this answer is tied into lots of things, but in 2022 I got, I was one of eight choreographers selected for the Jacob's Pillow Choreographic Fellowship where I started developing my work titled As If Everything Was Perfect.

I feel like everything that I've made since 2022 has been like, a cousin or a stepsister of that piece, which is also really exciting because it is coming to its premiere this fall at Breshtnikov Arts.

So yeah, it feels like everything that I've done has been researched and related to that big work, which is my first evening-length work.

And so coming into working in February, I feel like 2026 has just been like a massive year.

I started my first university teaching position as a lecturer at UC Santa Barbara.

And I teach a lot.

I teach at four schools.

I teach like 160%.

As most of us

dance humans do, just like working an insane amount and then have my freelance career.

So we have been in conversation.

My friend Noelle introduced us, which was really special and amazing.

And it feels really awesome that Noelle will also be a part of this build in the spring show.

I, walking in, I was really excited to just meet the dancers.

My MFA research and my creative practice really kind of revolved around how do I create my question and going into building my research was how do I generate movement vocabulary in an expedited process? I was really inspired by Wayne McGregor's TED Talk on three ways of physical thinking and how a freelance space maker can generate vocabulary quickly.

And so my creative practice that I've been doing and researching since I was in high school, but like more formally since my master's in 2015, really informs like everything that I make.

and

helps me build a world and helps me share and offload information to dancers and onload information from them and the mutual exchange between the two and to really create a research-based environment.

So, yeah.

And that fits really well, it feels like, with what Madco has been doing these last few years, especially because it's a rep company, but it's more than just copying and pasting what the rep is from one season to the next.

And it does rely a lot on the dancers in the rooms.

I don't know if...

Yeah, absolutely.

I think the first iteration of this work was really expedited for both of us.

I think we went into it kind of being like this is gonna be a big push.