Meet Danielle Georgiou | Director, Choreographer, & Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Danielle Georgiou and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I started the Danielle Georgiou Dance Group (DGDG) with a love of dance, theatre, and a curiosity to explore the type of dance and theatre I never saw around me. I wanted to show that despite all the training a dancer can do, technique is your foundation, but not your identity. Today, our body of work consists of so many various forms, styles, venues, and audiences. We explore the tension between the individual and culture, the individual and the mass, and we seek to provide a dialogic mechanism in place of the void of fear, ignorance, and hate. We have created everything from one-minute dances to ten minute short films to three-hour durational performance artworks. We have made bizarre films, and created beautiful, still portraits. It’s such a joy to create our special works of art.

As humans, we cannot truly invent cultural practice and novel art forms in the ways which can be easily marketed. Rather, our innovation is defined by our artists. We cultivate a sense of collaboration and cooperation which allows us to discover our own stories, and our own perspective. In this way, we avoid telling any story other than our own. It’s dynamic and fascinating, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

This artistic motivation has translated to my work as a director for theatre, opera, and film, as well as my work as an intimacy and fights choreographer for the stage. It also resonates in my work as a visual artist. And it has always been the basis of my teaching practices as an educator.

How did you get to where you are today professionally. Was it easy?

I received my undergraduate degrees in International Business and French, I earned my masters in Political Science, with a concentration in arts funding, and public policy, and in 2018, I completed my Ph.D. in Humanities – Aesthetic Studies, writing about the research I’ve done in performance practice. After my masters, I immediately went to work in strenuous political jobs, constantly doing more and more research, writing, and ideation. The pace of the work spurred me on during my doctorate, as I was creating my dance works. The blending of analytical and artistic processes gave me training in how to organize and multitask, which gave me the confidence to attempt larger projects. Through my studies, my jobs, and my work, I learned how to adapt my process. It has been entirely, and increasingly difficult, costing me friendships, sleep, and my own confidence at times. In an industry that it poised to both objectify and destabilize women, I have had to work incredibly hard to be heard and not corrected, to be respected and not patronized, and honestly, to be left alone to make my work. I am most proud of myself for constantly learning, even though it can test my mental health at times. I am most excited for all the people whom I will meet in the years to come, crossing paths on all of our artistic journeys.

How did you overcome these challenges?

I will let you know when I get there. But I have learned that no one will do anything FOR you, but they DO want to help you. If they don’t want to help you, then they aren’t confident in themselves.

As for myself, I want people to know that they are not their training, and that their work is crucial, even if its value isn’t found in a grant or a gig. I want people to look at work I create and to think to themselves, “I, too, give myself permission to make my own work, immediately, and for as long as I wish. I do not deserve anything beyond this, besides what I decide that I shall do.” I never want someone to make the mistake, as I have done, of judging themselves based off the work of someone else, and in this, I wish for people to see their work outside of the immediate gratification of its completion, and rather, many steps in a long relationship with the work.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?

We would definitely have to do a little foodie tour of Dallas. Breakfast at Goldrush Café, All Good Café, Oddfellows, or Hypnotic Donuts & Biscuits. Lunch at Jimmy’s Italian Market, Corner Market, or Paradiso. Coffee pick-me-up at Halcyon, LUD Coffee, Cultivar Coffee (also good for breakfast), or La La Land Kind Café. Dinner at The Heights, JINYA, Afrah Mediterranean, Hello Dumpling, or DaLat. An after-hours hang at Cosmos, Four Corners, or Lee Harvey’s. Some later night bites at BuzzBrews (breakfast for dinner!) or Tacos Y Mas.

We would have to daytrip to White Rock Lake. Take a walk around the lake and discover all the little hidden piers and photo spots. Picnic, sunbath, rent a kayak. Or just bird watch and people watch.

Then we would have to do some thrifting! Value World, Crossroads Vintage, Dolly Python, Genesis Benefit Thrift Store, Buffalo Exchange, Uptown Cheapskate, Consignment Heaven, Lula B’s!

For some physical activity, we could drop into a dance class at my favorite local studio, The Movement Loft.

ART! ART! ART! We would have to make a stop at The Dallas Museum of Art, The Nasher, The Perot Museum, see a show at the Ochre House, Theatre Three, Second Thought, or Kitchen Dog. If it’s summer, definitely picnicking while watching a production by Shakespeare Dallas. Check out the dance company that TITAS is hosting that weekend, or see a local dance company take the stage. And no trip to Dallas is complete without watching a movie at the Texas Theatre, visiting as many of the local art spots, like Ro2 Art, the gallery at the Oak Cliff Cultural Center, and The Cedars Union, and concert venues, like Club Dada, the Granada, or the Kessler.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My body of work is a testament to the community of artists in North Texas that I have had the privilege to collaborate with, specifically those who have had a hand in the last twelve years of the Danielle Georgiou Dance Group. I have had the honor to collaborate with incredible performers, musicians, composers, writers, designers, and audiences, all of whom are crucial to the success and longevity of the work. I also want to shout out to the visual arts community in North Texas that helped open my mind and raised me to be the performance artist I am today. The artists, curators, galleries, and museums have been a longtime support system, and I am forever grateful. And finally, I want to say that the support of my parents — immigrants who prioritized my education and life experience — has been a powerful source of inspiration.

Website: www.dgdgdancegroup.com

Instagram: @daniellegeorgiou, @dgdgdancegroup

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/daniellegeorgioudancegroup

Image Credits
Danielle Georgiou_2022_Photo by Justin Locklear

Alondra Puentes, Rebecca DeButts D’Strana, Lexis Greer in YOUR PLACE OR MINE, as performed with Muscle Memory Dance Theatre, Photo by Justin Locklear

Danielle Georgiou speaking at the kNOwBOX dance FilmFestival 2022

Danielle Georgiou teaching choreography to the cast of Stede Bonnet at Theatre Three, 2022, Photo by Danny Anchondo, Jr.

Justin Locklear, Marcus Stimac, Marti Etheridge, and Omar Padilla The Danielle Georgiou Dance Group in THE BIPPY BOBBY BOO SHOW, 2021, Photo by Heather Alley

Lexis Greer, Kelli Howard, Danielle Georgiou, Alondra Puentes, and Marlo Mysliwiec in THE WAITING ROOM, a short film by DGDG, video still by Frank Darko

Lexis Greer and Alondra Puentes in SUNSETS, NO SLEEP, as performed at the 2022 Aimed Summer Dance Festival, Photo by Lynn Lane

REST, a collaborative piece with DGDG, Taylor Cleveland, and Justin Locklear for Temple Emanu-El Dallas and Aurora Dallas, 2023, Photo by Dylan Hollingsworth