Natalie Stehly is a dancer, maker, and educator. She graduated with highest honors from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign earning her BFA in Dance. During her time in Urbana, she had the pleasure of performing in works by Kendra Portier, Mauriah Kraker, Leah Wilks, Charli Brissey, Renée Wadleigh, Nico Brown, Linda Lehovec, Paige Cunningham-Caldarella and Rachel Rizzuto, and additionally working with faculty members Jennifer Monson, Abby Zbikowski, Kirstie Simons, Sara Hook, Tere O'Connor among others. Natalie is passionate about dance education and notably has taught at Dancewave, School at Peridance, Dance Theatre of Harlem, La Crosse Dance Centre as well as guest taught at Lawrence University. In addition to teaching dance, Natalie is a 200-Hour Registered Yoga Teacher and certified Children’s Yoga Instructor. Her choreography and teaching practices are interwoven with her love for improvisation and somatic practices, such as the Alexander Technique. Her choreographic work has been presented at Current Showcase (Current Take.5 and Current Take.3 in Brooklyn, NY), Green Space's Fertile Ground Showcase (Queens, NY), Dancewave Community Showcase (Brooklyn, NY), and through Dancewave Company Program at New York Live Arts (New York, NY).
ARTIST STATEMENT
I craft from a notion that everything is in; our personal histories and experiences cannot be separated from the work itself. My experiences of loss, and the constant search for identity that has come with it, informs the way I experience my art. Self reflection, nostalgia, and their relationship to the present moment is a constant negotiation in my work. This way of considering the creative process yields an interwoven quality of the work and a necessity for each individual within it.
When the intelligence of my body takes over, I feel as though I am moving from something that is more than the “me” I can define myself as with words. These moments call me back to my art; my being is always searching for the next drop of sweat, the next falling, the next collision, the next connection, the next time.
