DANCE BEYOND THE FRINGE: ARTS FEST PUTS TROUPE ON MAP

Portland's Eowyn Emerald & Dancers are getting noticed

Like many people in the performing arts, Eowyn Emerald seeks attention — for her work and for her dance company.

It’s why she went partly around the world again, bringing her troupe with her to the recent Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland.

You may have heard of the fest. It features more than 50,000 performances of about 3,200 shows in nearly 300 venues around the city, and self-producers and venues sold about 2.5 million tickets for performances. It’s tabbed as the largest arts festival in the world, and “they say it’s the largest in the history of the world,” Emerald says.

Emerald, 31, a native of Canada who has lived in the Portland area for nearly 20 years, wanted to be a part of it. She brought Eowyn Emerald & Dancers there in 2012 and 2014, and at the recent festival basically sold out 21 shows in 3 1/2 weeks — albeit a venue that seats only 60 people.

“I love going, and it’s the first time we did the whole festival — 21 shows and only two days off,” Emerald says.

Emerald, a dancer and choreographer and company head, hopes more people took notice of her dance. Two years ago, she and her dancers received some glowing reviews, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival magazine featured them when previewing the festival.

“For me, there was a personal connection — my family is from Scotland,” she says. “For the company, it’s trying to be seen by more people and get bookings in the U.K. and Europe.

“There are a couple of other fringe festivals, such as in Australia, and if you’re seen by the right person, you can go to Australia. We did get an email from someone in The Netherlands. There was a guy from China at the show. A British touring group asked us to be part of their program.”

You get the point: A building organization needs to go the extra mile, or in Emerald’s case 4,500 miles, and sometimes pay the tab. It cost the company between $30,000 and $40,000.

“It’s a self-produced festival, so as long as you’re willing to put up cost and someone is willing to say ‘yes’ to your show and you can rent a venue and sell tickets, you’re good to go,” she says. Some venues hire performing arts companies and basically sponsor them; Emerald hopes a venue picks up her dance group in the future.

It’s all about trying to gain reputation and name recognition. Emerald puts on some performances around here, such as at Risk/Reward and JAW: A Playwrights Festival and evening-length shows, but not enough of them, yet. She also runs Pacific Dance Makers.

“A lot of time it’s hard to get people to take a risk on an unknown choreographer,” she says. For Edinburgh, “I’ll take the risk financially, the hit, to be seen. Hopefully people start picking you up, know you can ‘sell’ tickets and put you on their program.”

Emerald doesn’t pay herself a salary and puts workshop and class earnings and money from part-time jobs back into her company. She also received grant. Along with ticket sales, the money pays the costs.

“We lucked out,” she says. “The last time we went in 2014, we were seen by a guy who happens to freelance for The Times of London and The List (website). He heard we were coming back and wrote a preview article and it went into the festival magazine. That helped ticket sales.”

The reviewer, Donald Hutera, wrote in The Times: “She and her small company present a virtually seamless hour of seven short pieces that are emotionally suggestive, physically precise, yet expansive and perfectly calibrated for an intimate space. Think of it as a kinetic concept album with varieties of contact between human beings as its mathematic connective tissue.”

She also received reviews in The Scotsman and Broadway Baby.

Wrote The Scotsman: “Eowyn Emerald has become a buzz name on the Fringe dance scene since her last visit, and from this it’s clear why. Finding dance that is accessible, communicative and emotionally vivid while never compromising on precision and creativity is a rare treat.”

Dancers at the festival were Emerald and Holly Shaw/Mari Kai Juras (performing the same role in different performances), and Josh Murry-Hawkins and Joel Robert Walker.

Emerald attended Vancouver School of Arts and Academics in Vancouver, Washington, and then moved to Portland in 2007. She served as an apprentice with BodyVox, and then had a full-time job that she left in 2011 to lead her dance company full-time.

Who knows how far Eowyn Emerald & Dancers will go in the entertainment business?

But, they’ll always have Edinburgh.

“We had people coming back to see our show. That was cool and flattering,” Emerald says.

“We plan to go again. If we can be picked up by a venue that presents, we’d definitely go. I would go every year, if I could, even to go as a patron to see shows.”

For more on Eowyn Emerald & Dancers, see www.eowynemerald.com.