Emma Wiggins is a California native whose passion for dance developed at the early age of four. She began her dance training with Civic Dance Center in Bakersfield, California, where she studied ballet, modern, jazz, tap, and hip hop. As a member of Imagine Ballet Company, she had the opportunity to perform at the Regional Dance America Pacific festival where she was recognized as an honor student from her company. She recently graduated from UC Irvine in 2017, and holds a B.F.A. in Dance Performance, magna cum laude, and a B.A. in Education Sciences with a Specialization in Children’s Learning and Development, summa cum laude. Within the Dance Department at UC Irvine, she was given the opportunity to work closely with a number of esteemed faculty members including Professor Emeritus Donald McKayle as a member of his Etude Ensemble for three years, and Distinguished Professor Lar Lubovitch as a featured soloist in his re-staging of The Legend of Ten (2010). She also received funding from UCI’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) for multiple projects, allowing her to research dance in Panama and Italy, each of which contributed to the culmination of her Campuswide Honors Program senior thesis. Emma was recognized for her academic and artistic achievements at UC Irvine as a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, and as a recipient of the Chancellor’s Award of Distinction, the Cloud Hsueh Foundation Scholarship, the Kris and Linda Elftmann Scholarship, the Sircello Award, and the Excellence in Dance Performance Award. She is intrigued by the power that dance has to move an entire audience purely through movement and is inspired by the artists she has the opportunity to dance with and learn from every day.

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