Bio / CV
Emma Waltraud Howes oscillates between movement and form to create time-based performance installations that merge soft sculpture, sound, and improvisation with fallible objects. Her transdisciplinary practice unfolds through reconfigurations of body and space, shaped by her background in dance (ballet, baroque opera, modern, and baguazhang—an internal Chinese martial art), performance theory, and visual arts within a conceptual framework.
Guided by an acute observation of gesture, Howes develops an expanded choreographic practice that integrates public interventions, kinesthetic and architectural research, and speculative graphic scores—drawings that chart the evolution from concept and intention to depiction and effect. These graphic systems serve as a foundation for concentrated encounters, or ‘serious play,’ where embodied experience gives rise to hyper-glitch operas and Cadavre Exquis—chimeras that celebrate comprehensive failure and foster alternative perspectives.
Rooted in intersectional feminism and posthumanism, Howes constructs radical mythologies that challenge dominant histories, reframe narratives through a decolonial lens, and amplify marginalized voices—reimagining power, identity, and agency through live performance installation and cinematic works.
Howes studied Ballet and Baroque Opera before becoming a company member with the Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre. She received a certificate in professional training from Toronto Dance Theatre, Toronto; a BFA from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver; and an MFA from Concordia University, Montreal, where she was awarded an international grant to take part in the New Artistic Strategies program at The Bauhaus-Universität, Weimar. She later completed Professional Postgraduate Studies at Goldrausch Künstlerinnenprojekt Art IT in Berlin in 2011. During her studies, she ran a martial arts school for ten years.
Her works have been exhibited and published internationally, including Critical Shifts (Barin Han, 2024), The Time it Takes (Musée d’Art de Joliette, 2024), Manageable Matter (Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, 2023), ImPulsTanz, Vienna (2023), and the 11th Berlin Biennale (Martin-Gropius-Bau, 2020).
She has been a grant recipient from NPN Stepping Out, Nationales Performance Netz, Fonds Darstellende Künst, Berlin; Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn; Canada Council for the Arts; the Québec Council for the Arts; the Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada); the Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa; and Goldrausch Künstlerinnenprojekt Art IT, Berlin.
She was the Canada Council Artist in Residence at ACME Studios in London in 2018 and the Québec Council Artist in Residence at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin in 2014.
Monographs include Scores for Daily Living (Berlin: Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa and K. Verlag Press, 2020), Ankyloglossia (n. tongue-tie) (Berlin: K. Verlag Press, 2014), and An Archive of Accident Gestures (Berlin: Goldrausch, 2011).
She is currently a guest professor in the Faculty of Art and Design at the University for the Arts Bremen.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
Musée d’art de Joliette (MAJ), Joliette, Quebec; Kunstverein am Rosa Luxemburg Platz, Berlin; Diaphanes, Berlin; Associazione Culturale Spettro, Brescia; Frontviews, Berlin; 11th Berlin Biennale, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin; ZIL Cultural Center, Moscow; Quartier Am Hafen, Köln; Kunstmuseet Nord-Trøndelag, Namsos; The Place, London; Blackwood Gallery, Mississauga; Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin.
Selected Group Exhibitions
Critical Shifts (Barin Han, 2024); Science Fiction Research Association conference (SFRA) Technische Sammlungen, Dresden; The Crack Begins Within, 11th Berlin Biennale c/o ExRotaprint, Berlin; THIS HOUSE IS NOT A HOME, K-Phase, Lothringer 13 Halle, München; Dreiküchenhaus: Labor, Ritual, and Civilization, Neustadt, Kornträgerweg, Hamburg; I hear you (Jeg hører deg), Kunstmueet Nord-Trøndelag, Namsos; Gregarious Approximations, Frontviews, Berlin; Conglomerate: Block 5, Kino Moviemento, Berlin; Hidden Lines of Space, Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin.
Selected Collaborations as Choreographer and Performer
Phase Shifting Index, Liminals, Jeremy Shaw; Group Think, Stine Marie Jacobsen; Ten Days Six Nights, Joan Jonas; The Stroker, Pilvi Takala; Dynamis, Georgia Sagri; Symphony of a Missing Room, Lundohl & Seitl.
Selected Publications
Espace, No 138 Mournings (Montreal, 2024); Le Sabord issue 128 | foudres (Montreal, 2024); DIAPHANES Magazine No. 11 Surrogacies (Berlin, 2023); Botanical Drift (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2018); The Retreat (Toronto: Public Journal, 2014).
Workshops
Osmo/za & Cukrarna, Ljubljana; ImPulsTanz, Vienna; Ateneu, Porto; Kunstlerhaus Bremen, Bremen; Kunsthochschule Mainz, Mainz; Very Project Space, Berlin; University College of Nord-Trøndelag, Namsos; Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin; Centrum, Berlin.
Upcoming projects
Howes is currently producing the second film and live performance in an evolving trilogy—a production featuring nine performers with nine glass artichoke maces.