Who We Are
eMBody is a movement collective co-led by Madeline Nobida (she/her) and Bella Stenvall (she/they), both queer, mixed Asian-American dancers and choreographers based in the unceded homeland of the Lenape people (colonially known as Brooklyn, New York). Our organizing centers the cultural power of queer and trans dancers, particularly within New York City’s street, club, and social dance communities.
eMBody creates regular opportunities for artists to build community, collaborate, and share resources. Our events range from jams to workshops to performances, and we raise and redistribute funds to values-aligned mutual aid groups.
Rooted in a love of cross-disciplinary creation, eMBody revels in spaces where disciplines converge. We cultivate environments where different artistic lineages can learn from and transform one another. As lifelong students of many different dance practices, we believe that everyone (regardless of whether you identify as a dancer) has embodied knowledge that can shape and inform dance-making.
Our work explores communal experiences of catharsis and celebration—practices that are participatory by nature and can unfold anywhere, from a proscenium stage to a park jam to a Brooklyn apartment windowscape.
“Both Nobida and Stenvall dance with an accented flow that is hypnotic, and as they take turns watching one another, audiences are once again reminded of the power in bearing witness as a form of acceptance.” - Six Degrees Dance review
MADELINE NOBIDA
Madeline Nobida (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist across dance, video production, and photography. She grew up training with Bay Area dance crews Chapkis Dance Family and Funk Beyond Control.
Maddi works with freestyle dancers and choreographers alike, aiding in movement generation and visual art such as video editing and photography. She has collaborated with Aeternus Dance Company, Selcouth Movement, Victoria Marks, WHYTEBERG, Haze Soyeon, and Paola Escobar. She has also movement directed and collaborated with music artists Noah Mac, Jacklen Ro, and Jodie Reeves. In addition to art making, Madeline is deeply committed to community engagement and empowerment. In 2018 and 2019, she worked as a Counselor for UCLA’s Dance Intensive, guiding a group of high school students to finds their voices through dance and poetry. Madeline aims to use her visual arts and leadership skills to aid artists, from choreographers to musicians, in their own practices. She is currently based in New York City where she continues her training in various street style and contemporary dance forms.
Maddi received her B.A. in Dance from the World Arts and Cultures/Dance Department (WACD) at the University of California, Los Angeles.
BELLA STENVALL
Bella Stenvall (she/they) is a queer, mixed-Filipinx movement artist, producer, arts researcher, and cultural organizer.She considers herself a life-long student of many movement practices including waving, contemporary, and house. Her work unravels inherited rituals, instincts, and histories and reweaves connections across systems, borders, and timelines to reveal our collective interdependence.
Bella has organized community performance spaces and interdisciplinary collaborations all over the world. In 2023, she served as an Artist-in-Residence at the IDEA Festival in Amman, Jordan where she was commissioned to create a new all-ages participatory work for the festival. As a performer, she has collaborated with and danced for artists such as The Marias, KAYE, Kyle Abraham, Nia Love, Ryuji Yamaguchi, and Haze Soyeon—all of whom she is indebted to and admires greatly.
Bella is invested in dance as a critical tool for cultural placemaking and has written articles about dance and international policy, and curated and moderated performance panels about dance as a critical placemaking both nationally and internationally. She led a dance and disability field study for the National Endowment for the Arts. She is a moreArt Engaging Artists Fellow and Teaching Artist with Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre.