Erin Carlisle Norton
Erin Carlisle Norton is a dancer, choreographer, movement educator, and Artistic Director of the NJ/NYC-based The Moving Architects (TMA). Through TMA, she has performed, taught, and toured both nationally and internationally, with recent projects in Kentucky, North Carolina, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington State. International projects include tours in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan through the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Embassies, and throughout Morocco and Guatemala. Her choreographic work is rooted in feminist narratives and ideologies, developed through collaborative processes that foreground story, history, and place.
Erin has been recognized with two Fellowships in Choreography from the NJ State Council on the Arts. Colleagues have described her work as “brave and bold and fearless,” while critics note her “fresh and daring aesthetic.” NYC-area performances have been presented at BAM Fisher, Arts on Site, Dixon Place, Triskelion Arts, Bryant Park Dance Festival, Performance Mix Festival, Ramapo College, SOPAC, and Making Moves Dance Festival, among others. Residencies include MOtiVE Brooklyn, Dancewave, Cedar Crest College/LVDE, Wilson College, and MANA Contemporary with the Monira Foundation, with additional recent support from IndieSpace. Her dance films have screened at Dance on Camera at Lincoln Center, Seoul International Dance Film Festival, and other national festivals. In September 2025, through TMA, Erin created Where She Once Stood at the Crane House and Historic YWCA in Montclair, NJ, a site-specific performance project supported by the NJ Council for the Humanities and Essex County Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with Montclair History Center. Featured on State of the Arts on PBS, the successful project brought untold women’s stories to life through movement and community engagement.
Committed to education and exchange, Erin has taught dance courses at the university level and regularly guest teaches, including recently at Cedar Crest College and the University of Kentucky, and produces the long-running popular interview podcast Movers & Shapers: A Dance Podcast. Among her accolades, Erin was selected for the Dance/USA Institute for Leadership in Dance program and was nominated for a Women in Podcasting Award. She holds a BFA and MFA in Dance from The Ohio State University, is a Certified Laban Movement Analyst (GLCMA) through Columbia College Chicago, and is a Pilates Instructor/Owner of Align Pilates.
ERIN'S ARTIST STATEMENT
I create dance works that use feminist narratives and ideologies that are deeply explored through collaborative processes. We have an expansive definition of feminine, delving into complex relationships and roles as mothers/caretakers, partners, and friends, and social dynamics that examine power dynamics and varied qualities and traits of gender. Our work embodies current and historically lived approaches to the female experience, including drawing on the histories embedded in the sites where we perform.
At the heart of my work are the dance artists. Their relationships to each other and their trust, thoughtfulness, and risk form the framework of my practice. Physical and emotional power are central to my movement grammar; we incorporate experiences of time through stillness, speed, and overexertion, and we incorporate weight and force through dynamics of conflict, support, and strength.
Collaboration across dance, visual art, and sound is central to my work, with each performance shaped by its site. Through textiles, interactive components, and site-specific design, we build layered environments that carry historical, social, and cultural meaning that informs the movement vocabulary and themes, deepening the connection between performers, audience, and space.
The perspectives of each group I work with shape the creation of these immersive, multi-faceted worlds that invite audiences to enter, experience, and reflect. By intertwining dance, history, humanities, and the specificity of place, our work cultivates a dialogue between performers, audience, and environment, revealing the layered narratives and connections of both people and space.
ERIN'S ORIGINAL CHOREOGRAPHY
The Moving Architects’ “Where She Once Stood” in partnership with Montclair History Center (excerpts)
The Moving Architects explores the complex history of the Crane House & Historic YWCA in Montclair with an on-site dance. Artistic director Erin Carlisle Norton uses music, history and movement in "Where She Once Stood" to tell powerful stories of the many women who lived in the house, from enslaved Black women and Irish immigrants to the Black women and girls who used the YWCA during segregation.
Premiere 9.20.25
Crane House & Historic YWCA
Montclair, New Jersey
This project was made possible by a grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. This project was also made possible by funds from the Essex County Division of Cultural Affairs, a partner of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
Choreographer: Erin Carlisle Norton in collaboration with the dancers
Dancers: Mariah Anton-Arters, Nicole Arakaki, Karma Chuki, Emily Cicio,
Kelly Guerrero, Cecilia Mitchell
Music: “Minor Swing” by Django Reinhardt
Video Production: by Nel Shelby Productions
Exterior Video: Nate Reininga
Editor: Erin Carlisle Norton
Be Still My Soul (dance film excerpts) (2025)
Choreographer: Erin Carlisle Norton in collaboration with the dancers
Dancers: Mariah Anton-Arters, Emily Cicio, Kelly Guerrero
Music: 4 100 by Michael Wall
Filmed/Edited: Erin Carlisle Norton
Special thanks to Partners for Sacred Spaces and IndieSpace for funding support, and
Broadway Presbyterian Church (NYC).
In Be Still My Soul, a trio of dancers moves through an aged and holy church, their bodies carving and careening with clean, deliberate lines as they traverse shifting shadow and stained-glass light. From the balconies above down to the labyrinth painted across the sanctuary floor, their movement unfolds in solo, duet, and trio forms, through a blend of speed and stillness, lifts and reaches, searching and surrender, settling at last on the labyrinth, where it resonates with the echoes of the sanctuary and their inner journeys.
O my soul (dance film) (2022)
O my soul is a solo dance film about a woman and her relationship to the passage of time. Time is seen through the speed and stillness of the natural and hyper-digitized dancing female body, and its contrast to the outdoor landscapes of labor found in the metal structures, steep hills, and gravel roads. With undercurrents of wind rippling through hair and clothing, this work meaningfully reveals experiences of time with textures and sensations of nature, body, and location.
Dancer/Choreographer/Editor: Erin Carlisle Norton
Music: Wings 3 by Michael Wall
Videographer Support: Michael and Miles Norton
This work was created as part of the IN 7 – Experimental Video Art Residency at
Gardenship in Kearny Point, NJ curated by Kasia Skorynkiewicz.