Early life and education
Portner began dancing at age three at a competitive studio in Ottawa. She spent summers training with the National Ballet of Canada and attended Canterbury High School in Ottawa's specialized arts program, in the dance stream.1
At 17, she relocated to New York City to train at The Ailey School. She left after five months to begin her professional career directly, finding her path through collaborative and commercial work rather than formal conservatory training.1
Career
Portner's career accelerated rapidly in her early twenties. Her short dance film Dancing in the Dark, made with Los Angeles-based dancer Matt Luck, gained wide online attention and demonstrated her visual instincts for camera-and-body composition. Director Jay Scheib discovered her work on Vimeo and brought her in to choreograph Bat Out of Hell: The Musical, Jim Steinman's rock musical built around Meat Loaf's catalog. The show premiered in London in June 2017,4 making Portner, at approximately age 20 at the time of her engagement, the youngest woman to have choreographed a West End musical.2
Her collaboration with Justin Bieber established her mainstream profile: she choreographed his "Life is Worth Living" music video (2015) and his Purpose World Tour, one of the highest-grossing concert tours of that year.5 Other artist collaborations have included Doechii, Maggie Rogers, FKA Twigs, Blood Orange, and Sylvan Esso, as well as commercial work for Apple, Netflix, Vogue, Adidas, and Sony Studios.2
Concurrent with commercial work, Portner has built a sustained presence in the concert dance world. Her institutional commissions include the National Ballet of Canada, the Norwegian National Ballet, GoteborgsOperans Danskompani (Goteborg, Sweden), the Guggenheim Museum, Jacob's Pillow, Lafayette Anticipations (Paris), and the Theatre des Champs-Elysees.2 Her ballet Islands, created for the Norwegian National Ballet in 2021, subsequently toured with the National Ballet of Canada alongside works by Crystal Pite, Jiri Kylian, and Ohad Naharin. Bathtub Ballet premiered at the Royal Swedish Opera. Forever, Maybe premiered with Goteborg Danskompani in spring 2024. In May 2025, Lafayette Anticipations presented All My Solos Were Prayers, a solo performance work.6
The New York Times has described her work as "beguiling."2 Paper magazine named her among its "100 people to watch" in 2019,7 and she has appeared on the covers of Dance Spirit and Dance Magazine.1 She is also a vocalist with the indie music duo Bunk Buddy, formed with producer Noah Rubin.
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
In Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Portner portrayed the spirit form of Gozer the Gozerian. Director Jason Reitman cast Olivia Wilde as the humanoid physical form of Gozer, reaching out to Wilde via text message;8 Wilde appeared in the role uncredited.3 Portner was separately engaged and credited for the body performance in sequences requiring unusual or supernatural movement vocabulary.9 The character is voiced by Shohreh Aghdashloo.3 Together Wilde and Portner give Gozer two distinct physical registers: Wilde's composed, commanding surface presence, and Portner's fluid and uncanny movement in the sequences that demand a non-human physical vocabulary.
Personal life
Portner married actor Elliot Page in January 2018, after the two connected through Instagram.10 Page came out as a transgender man in December 2020; Portner expressed public support.10 The couple divorced in early 2021.10
References
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
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"Emma Portner," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Portner.
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"Emma Portner," National Arts Centre biography, accessed 2026-06-13, https://nac-cna.ca/en/bio/emma-portner.
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"Ghostbusters: Afterlife's Gozer The Gozerian Was Played By Three Actresses," Ghostbusters News, December 31, 2021, https://ghostbustersnews.com/2021/12/31/ghostbusters-afterlifes-gozer-the-gozerian-was-played-by-three-actresses/.
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"Bat Out of Hell: The Musical," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_Out_of_Hell:_The_Musical. (London premiere June 20, 2017.)
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"Why Commercial Star Emma Portner Is Exploding Into the Concert Dance World Right Now," Dance Magazine, 2018, https://dancemagazine.com/emma-portner/. ("She choreographed and starred in Justin Bieber's 'Life Is Worth Living.'")
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"Emma Portner," Lafayette Anticipations artist profile, accessed 2026-06-13, https://www.lafayetteanticipations.com/en/artiste/emma-portner.
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"PAPER Predictions: 100 People Taking Off in 2019," Paper, 2018, http://www.papermag.com/bowen-yang-2625149547.html?rebelltpage=63.
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"Olivia Wilde Accepted Her Role in Ghostbusters: Afterlife Through a Text Message," Ghostbusters News, May 17, 2022, https://ghostbustersnews.com/2022/05/17/olivia-wilde-accepted-her-role-in-ghostbusters-afterlife-through-a-text-message/. (Reitman: "I reached out to her like, 'Hey, you wanna be Gozer?' I texted her, and she was down from the word 'go.'")
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"Ghostbusters: Afterlife Spoiler Special -- Director Jason Reitman on Cujo, Callbacks and Killing JK Simmons," Empire, December 30, 2021, https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/ghostbusters-afterlife-spoiler-special-director-jason-reitman-on-cujo-callbacks-and-killing-jk-simmons/. ("It's Olivia Wilde, but it is also Emma Portner -- the movement of Gozer was brought to life by the great modern dancer Emma Portner, and the face is Olivia Wilde.")
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Alisha Ebrahimji, "Elliot Page and Emma Portner Announce They Are Divorcing," CNN, January 26, 2021, https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/26/entertainment/elliot-page-divorce-emma-portner-trnd/index.html.
