Dallas is Lit! Literary Festival<\/a> in May. It\u2019s one of The Writer\u2019s Garret\u2019s signature programs.<\/p>\nDiana Crowder, Pegasus\u2019 artistic director and founder, said the concept blew her mind and she wondered what it would look like if the same list was translated through dance. <\/p>\n
So, this year, the groups collaborated. <\/p>\n
The company dancers brainstormed movements for each word. From there, four local choreographers took the reins and created dances using every gesture from the list.<\/p>\n
Translating words into movements<\/p>\n
Emma Krusling is a member of Pegasus\u2019 dance company. However, as a choreographer for this project, she did not attend the brainstorming session with the other dancers. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe first time I saw all 30 [movements] I was nervous. I was on the phone with my mom and was like, \u2018It will happen somehow, but I don\u2019t know how yet,\u2019\u201d Krusling said.<\/p>\n
![\"Emma](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775133548_511_.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Courtesy<\/p>\n
\/<\/p>\n
Allan Gonzalez, DFW Dance Photography <\/p>\n
Emma Krusling is a member of Pegasus Contemporary Ballet\u2019s company. She also choreographed one of the world premieres that will be featured in \u201cCommon Language.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been dancing with the majority of these women two and a half years now. While I still had that feeling of anxiety that this was a big challenge, I was set up in a way that I knew this was gonna happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
The poems for the anthology haven\u2019t been selected yet, but one of the choreographers wrote one of her own for the dance.<\/p>\n
\u2018The goal is just to make you feel something\u2019<\/p>\n
For Krusling, it\u2019s less important that people see her choreography and understand the moments in her life that inspired it, and more important that people are able to relate it to their own experiences. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal is just to make you feel something, and I think there’s validation in coming away with your own interpretation,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou never know exactly how things are gonna read in the moment, so one person who sees it Friday night might have a completely different idea than Saturday, and I think that’s what makes this artform so fulfilling and rewarding for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
In short, audiences don\u2019t need to worry about sussing out a poem from each dance. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe point once you get into the theater is not so much, I think, to try to identify or to \u2018Where\u2019s Waldo\u2019 these words as you\u2019re watching, but to see how those shapes and gestures combine in different ways,\u201d Aaron Glover, executive director of The Writer\u2019s Garret, said. <\/p>\n
Maybe the performance will inspire you to try your hand at poetry. Or maybe they will prompt you to seek out other poets\u2019 work. Or maybe they will change how you think about dance. <\/p>\n
Performances of \u201cCommon Language\u201d will take place at 8 p.m. April 3-4 at the Kalita Humphreys Theater, 3636 Turtle Creek Blvd., Dallas. Tickets are $22-$56.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Got a tip? Email Marcheta Fornoff at mfornoff@kera.org.<\/p>\n
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider\u00a0making a tax-deductible gift\u00a0<\/a>today. Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Imagine playing charades and having to act out the word \u201cblue\u201d or \u201ctarnish\u201d or \u201ccatastrophes.\u201d Now imagine handing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-231756","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-headlines","10":"tag-dallas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}