Emily Culbreath, MFA, is a dance maker, educator, writer, performer, and practitioner whose work inhabits the crossroads of street and club dance, choreo-activism, theater, and collective practice. She is best known as a former core member and rehearsal director with Rennie Harris Puremovement, and currently as the co-founder and director of Snack Break Movement Arts, a street dance theater and education collaborative that presents work nationally and internationally, including at the San Francisco International Hip Hop Dance Festival and Summer Dance Forever (Amsterdam).

Her research examines the intersections of critical race theory, gender studies, autoethnography, Hip Hop theater and pedagogy, and collaborative performance, tracing how embodied knowledge flows through identity, power, and collective authorship. Emily has served as a guest artist-in-residence at institutions across the United States and presented work at the American College Dance Association National Festival (Washington, D.C., 2025). She teaches and lectures in academic and community spaces and contributes writing to the dance journalism platform thINKingDANCE (Philadelphia).

Emily is honored and thrilled to join the faculty of the Theater and Dance Department at Bates College in Fall 2026, bringing her practice, research, and vision to a new community of artists and thinkers.

Registration for Fall 2026 opens tomorrow. 

Enroll for one of these courses with Emily: 

DANC240 Embodied Anatomy and Kinesthetics
MW, 2:40-4pm

DANC 270G & 270M Studio: Dance Ensemble, Intermediate & Advanced

TTh, 4:30-6:30pm

DANC 270L Studio: Hip Hop 2

TTh, 1:10-2:40pm