EMILY JONES & HANNAH KRAFCIK
Photos by Eric Nordstrom | Collage by Hannah Krafcik
Hannah Krafcik and Emily Jones are collaborators based on the unceded lands of the Cowlitz, Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, Clackamas, and many others, also known as Portland, Oregon. For nearly a decade, we have created performances and transdisciplinary projects together. Our work is rooted in shared authorship and interdisciplinary processes, as well as mutual listening and adaptive thinking. We regularly co-teach movement classes and workshops, drawing from somatic inquiry, contemporary dance, and contact improvisation (CI), and we both serve as facilitators at our local Queer CI Jam.
Our offerings explore the tensions between social power dynamics and unnamed personal needs: We maintain that sensory autonomy—the ability to honor and explore one's own sensory needs and desires—is an essential step in naming, refusing, and subverting coercive power dynamics that touch every aspect of life.
As dancers with interdisciplinary leanings, we often integrate other mediums into our work—such as projections, drawing, sculpture, and video—in order to expand access points for audiences. We present work in galleries and nightlife spaces out of an earnest desire to engage folks who are unfamiliar with our niche of making, to learn what they think and feel in response.
Our work has been presented by Velocity Dance Center, KH FRESH Festival, Stelo Arts, Paragon Arts Gallery, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s Time-Based Art Festival, Pieter Performance Space, and Art Klub NOLA. We have been artists-in-residency at Velocity Dance Center’s Next Fest NW, Chocolate Factory Theater, Camp Colton via Stelo Arts, PICA’s Creative Exchange Lab, Ellis-Beauregard Foundation, Performance Works NW and New Expressive Works.
Forthcoming project: PErigee (2026-2027)
Past projects: the swirl /aesthetics project / apogee / switch / apartment show / ecological bodies
GIFS: The Swirl at KYE ALIVE | Video by Siloh Photography & The Swirl at Stelo Arts, commissioned by Lucy Cotter for the launch of Reclaiming Artistic Research expanded 2nd edition | Video by Tax Coffey
Photos byJim Coleman, Erin O'Reilly, Mickey Sanchez, Hannah Krafcik, Jo Silver, Tojo Andrianarivo, Intisar Abioto, and Chelsea Petraikis
Photo by Sam Applebaum
Emily Jones (she/they) is a choreographer, dancer, movement teacher and bodyworker based in Portland, Oregon. Emily is inspired by the ways the application of information from biomechanics, physics and physiology can foster agency, and inform movement possibilities for dancing bodies. Emily is invested in the upholding of clear consent practices and open communication in spaces of learning and collaboration. Emily makes interdisciplinary performances and is part of an ongoing artistic partnership with Hannah Krafcik.
Photo by Atelier Photos
Hannah Krafcik is a Portland-based transdisciplinary neuroqueer artist. They studied dance at neighborhood studios and during college in Florida before moving to NYC, where they received a Master of Arts in Performance Studies from New York University. They originally sought to retain a relationship to dance through critical writing, but nowadays they prefer more than anything to create work and teach. Hannah met and began collaborating with Emily upon moving to Portland in 2016.