Raven has given her life to the discipline of ballet. She is precise. She is controlled. She is excellent, and everyone around her has learned to expect nothing less.
But somewhere along the way, she has also learned to make herself smaller. To quiet the parts of her that don’t fit the picture. To mistake disappearing for discipline.
Raven is learning that excellence
and self-erasure are not the same thing.
The Dark Swan follows what happens when she stops asking permission to fully become herself.
Emani Drake brings Raven to life with the precision Raven has spent years perfecting, and the fullness Raven is only beginning to let herself claim.
We live in a world that will tell you to conform, to fit into certain boxes so you fit into certain rooms. You’ll see that the very things that made you you, that set you apart, have been stripped away to make yourself more digestible — to be who they want you to be.
I’m excited to help myself and every Raven out in the world understand that they are fearfully and wonderfully made.
I believe it’s time that every Raven boldly shakes the world with all that she is, unapologetically!
Emani DrakeRaven
Emani Drake is a Cleveland-born, Chicago-based dance artist with Deeply Rooted Dance Theater. She earned her BFA in Dance from the University of the Arts on full scholarship and is a 2023 Princess Grace Honoraria Award recipient in Dance Performance. She has performed works by Ulysses Dove, José Limón, and Kevin Iega Jeff, The Dark Swan’s choreographer.