Choreographer’s Note

The Curious Life of Edgar Allan Poe is a new choreographic work and multi-platform engagement initiative from Ballet 5:8 that reframes Poe’s literary legacy through the lens of spiritual inquiry, cultural fracture, and artistic imagination. Inspired by Dr. Harry Lee Poe’s Evermore, the project explores how Edgar Allan Poe—often misunderstood as merely the father of horror—was in fact a writer deeply entangled in the moral and metaphysical struggles of his age. In a pre-Civil War America grappling with slavery, gender inequality, grief, and theological uncertainty, Poe emerged as a singular voice asking the questions many were afraid to name: Is there a just God behind the veil of suffering? Can beauty outlast death? What does the soul mean when reason collapses?
This ballet invites public audiences to reencounter Poe’s most iconic works—The Raven, Annabel Lee, The Tell-Tale Heart, and Ligeia—not as escapist gothic fiction, but as spiritual and cultural artifacts shaped by loss and longing. Choreographed by Artistic Director Julianna Rubio Slager, the production will merge original movement, spoken word, sound design, and abstracted period visuals to create an immersive performance experience rooted in both literary excellence and theological imagination.
The creative development will begin with research and collaboration alongside Dr. Harry Lee Poe, Charles Colson Professor of Faith and Culture at Union University and one of Poe’s direct descendants. As a leading scholar on Poe’s spiritual and scientific writings, Dr. Poe will serve as a key partner in shaping the ballet’s dramaturgical arc and will also take part in public events associated with the tour. Ballet 5:8 will premiere the evening-length work in the 2025–2026 season, followed by a national tour to 12–15 locations across universities, seminaries, regional theaters, and faith-based institutions.
Each performance will include a facilitated public conversation featuring scholars, artists, pastors, and educators. These talkbacks will prompt audiences to reflect on themes such as moral injury, spiritual longing, imagination as epistemology, and the tension between divine justice and human suffering. Select discussions will be professionally filmed and edited into a short-form video series, designed for both online public distribution and educational use. In tandem, Ballet 5:8 will produce a companion academic guide for students and faculty, including prompts for spiritual reflection, classroom discussion, and connections to relevant literature, theology, and philosophy.
This project is designed to meet a present cultural need. In an age saturated by noise, distraction, and polarization, there is a quiet but growing hunger for spaces where imagination and meaning can be explored with honesty and depth. The spiritual questions Poe wrestled with in his lifetime—questions about God, eternity, conscience, and justice—are still urgently felt today, especially among younger generations navigating an increasingly secular and disenchanted world. By using dance to draw out these questions, The Curious Life of Edgar Allan Poe invites audiences into an encounter with wonder. It models what it means to wrestle, to lament, and to remain curious in the face of uncertainty.
Rather than reducing Poe to caricature, the project restores him as a complex moral witness—one whose stories expose the interior costs of a society unwilling to face its contradictions. It repositions his work as prophetic, not just macabre. Through live performance, scholarship, media, and dialogue, Ballet 5:8 will create a platform that integrates the spiritual, intellectual, and emotional dimensions of human experience. The project will reframe Poe’s legacy as a mirror for our own cultural questions—and invite audiences into a deeper encounter with the sacred through art.