Paul Gordon Emerson (Co-Founder | Executive & Co-Artistic Director | Director of Ciné Film and Innovation Programs) moved to Washington for what was supposed to be a brief stopover while waiting for his first posting in the U.S. Foreign Service. He ended up serving as Legislative Director to the late Thomas M. Foglietta (D-PA) for seven years and liaison to the House Armed Services Committee. He has worked on more than 20 federal campaigns, including races for the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives.

His writings have appeared on the opinion pages of the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune. He is a former radio broadcaster, having served as a news director, disk jockey, and sports announcer for several radio stations in Ohio. Mr. Emerson was host of the Addy-Award winning Cable TV news magazine "Performance Moves" for three years. He has traveled nationally as a professional photographer, specializing in industrial photography. He has worked as a journeyman in construction and design and dabbles in bronze as a sculptor.

During Company E's first 60 months, Mr. Emerson has led the Company and its artists on Concerts, Education and Capacity Building programs, most often in partnership with the U.S. Deparment of State, around the world many times, with major partnerships forged with artists and organizations alike in countries as diverse as Kazakhstan, Italy, Belarus. and Uruguay. Crafting the Company's identity in international engagements and cross-cultural partnerships, he has built sister company relationships with, among others, Samruk Dance Company in Almaty, Kazakhstan, as a founding member of the international Dancing Partners consortium crafted by Thomas Noone Dance of Barcelona, Spain and the Astana Ballet in the Kazakh Capital.

Since its June 2011 founding in the Amazonian Reserve of Tambopata, Peru, the Company and its artists have worked in Cuba, Argentina, China, Chile, Peru, Italy, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Belarus, the Czech Republic, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Russia, Azerbaijan, and other nations in their role as Cultural Diplomats.

At home Mr. Emerson has led the partnerships created with Embassies of foreign nations in Washington, building relatioships which have led to season-long celebrations of the choreographers of Poland, Spain and others. Looking ahead to a new suite of countries which will bring brilliant yet unknown artists to the States, often for the first time, the Company plans evening-length programs of choreography by Colombia and Cuba in its 2017-2018 season.

In August of 2014 he joined Diana Movius, founder of the Dance Loft on 14, as Founding Executive Director and Facilities Designer to bring a stunning new State-of-the-Art arts space into being on the upper 14th street corridor of Washington, DC. Mr. Emerson's vision brought into being a full reimagined 6,000 square foot home for the performing arts from the bones of what was one the Park Movie Theater, a 1924 Silent Movie House that recalled the golden age of cinema. Today he still directs the developement and design of the Loft, and is the Director of the Wirehouse Theatre the Loft's nascent 100 seat black box theatre.

Building the Company | E relationship to its hometown, and restoring a key element of its mission, Mr. Emerson founded the Company | E Movement Center at the Dance Loft on 14, which opened its doors to over 100 students in January, 2016. The Center brings home the talent of Company | E's art and artists to train the next generation of dancers, movers and performing artists.

Alongside that effort, he directed the re-launch of the Capital Dance Program in partnership with Washington Performing Arts and the DC Public Schools, also in January 2016. Capital Dance is a daytime, in-school program for Elementary and Middle School students, focused on creating an opportunity of "youth-at-risk" students to experience, explore and seek dance as a passion and potentially as a career.

He Directs the Company | E Ciné and Innovation working group at Company | E, the film and new technology arm of the organization which creates both new works for digital media and new concepts in the interface between movement and technology.

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Prior to co-founding Company | E he co-founded and then served as Executive Director for CityDance Ensemble from 1996-2004 and was Artistic Director between 2000 and his resignation at the end of June 2011, when the performing company was disbanded. During his tenure with CityDance Ensemble, the company received every significant award in its history, including the 2010 DC Mayor's Arts Award for Service to Education, the 2009 DC Mayor's Arts Award for Artistic Excellence, 2003 DC Mayors Arts Award for Outstanding Emerging Artist and the 2005 DC Mayor’s Arts Award for Innovation in the Arts. During that time the Company was named a “Top 25 To Watch” worldwide by Dance Magazine.