Demers collaborates with Theater Studies Associate Professor and Director of the Yale Dance Studies Curriculum, Emily Coates. Professor Coates is a professional dancer, writer and choreographer. She has performed with New York City Ballet (1992 - 1998), Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project (1998 - 2002), Twyla Tharp (2001 - 2003), and Yvonne Rainer (2006 - present). Coates and Demers co-teach a course on Physics and Dance at Yale University and have written a book based, in part, on their class.
Book: Physics and Dance
Demers and Coates co-wrote a book titled Physics and Dance, published by Yale University Press. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300195835/physics-and-dance
Reviews:
Physics World: “Coupled Practices”
Arts Fuse: “The Intelligence of Movement”
American Mathematical Society: Bookshelf Review
Dance Magazine: “Are dancers secretly physicists in disguise?“
Art/Science Video about the Higgs Boson
One of Coates and Demers’s collaborative projects is an Art/Science Video about the Higgs Boson and Dance titled, “Three Views of the Higgs and Dance”. This work was supported with a grant from the New Haven Arts Council as part of the Reintegrate Project, aiming to foster the reintegration of the arts with the sciences. The video is edited by Jenai Cutcher West with CERN videography by Kike Calvo.
Presentations, Workshops and Performances
Coates and Demers have presented their work in several different contexts. Below are some examples:
Evening-length performance created by Emily Coates based, in part, on her collaboration with Sarah Demers: Incarnations.
Performed at the Wadsworth Athenium in Hartford, CT, March 17, 2018.
Performed at Danspace (St. Mark’s Church in NY, NY) March 16-18, 2017.
NY Times Review: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/21/arts/dance/review-danspace-incarnatio…
Science Friday: Bodies in Motion, August 10, 2018
https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/science-in-motion/
Guggenheim Museum: Works & Progress Series, “Physics and Dance”, November 30, 2015
TEDxYale: “Potential Poetics: Physics and Dance”, March 26, 2014
Yale Physics Club (Department Colloquium): “Physics Dance and the Higgs at Yale”, March 3, 2014
UNC Chapel Hill, Mellon Foundation Supported Residency: “Discovering the Higgs through Physics and Dance”, Oct 10 - 13, 2013
Wesleyan University, Innovations: Intersections of Art and Science Symposium: “Research, Teaching and Engagement” panelists, March 1, 2013
New Haven International Festival of Arts and Ideas: “Discovering the Higgs Workshop”, June 21, 2013
Yale SCHOLAR Program: “Discovering the Higgs Workshop”, July 11, 2013
Articles
For more information about our collaboration and projects, see the following articles:
Symmetry Magazine: “The Physics of Dance”, May 27, 2014
Yale Alumni Magazine: “Bodies in Motion”, Jan/Feb 2012
Photo credits: Jessica Todd Harper
Book Jacket by Eric Jiaju Lee