Artist Statement

I believe in the right to move, question, and feel your way through life.  When we dream like this it opens up space for new solutions and paradigms.  I dream with my collaborators by listening and telling stories. We use words and bodies. Eventually we agree on a form of dialogue. Dialogue with our bodies can heal ourselves. Conversations with each other can heal our relationships.  Whether I am teaching, developing curriculum, or choreographing, finding community is central to the work.  My projects are enthusiastic experiments conducted to find new ways to create healthy relationships. 

I layer my work using play, mystery, and suggestion. Intuition and instinct play a role in how I choose to make the work, and how I invite others to view it. I look to create ways for the audience and performers to share with one another and opt-in. My goal in each performance is to attempt to create a feedback loop in real time. I want to know how much we are connecting, on what level or planes, and how it is making us feel. To do this I use improvisatory tools, unusual or unexpected spaces, social media, and technology. 

In my projects where there are community aspects, my mission is to create space for others to fill. By building an inclusive framework, I encourage the individuals in the room co-create with me. The direction in which the choreography unfolds is always informed by the make up of the people in the room and how they relate to one another. In this way, my choreography, like my performances, are a kind of improvisation. They become a vital and living response to the stimuli of the present. My collaborators, the audience, the students, the dancers, we all respond to and create in real-time to make a community… even if it’s just for a day.

Teaching Statement

Teaching is a way to encourage freedom. Whether the students in my classroom are children in a public school or adult professionals, I believe I am there to promote autonomy and confidence. While concepts are important, and content is valuable, leadership and self-management are vital. It is only through compassionate self-assessment, enthusiastic goal-setting, and belief in one’s own choices that we can feel a sense of freedom. In my pedagogical practices I draw on these powerful motivators in human behavior—basically, they form our desire to grow according to our own path. I believe everyone can achieve that sense of personal freedom and confidence, they just need the right tools. These tools generally fall into a few categories—anatomical, emotional, social, and cognitive— and I am careful to provide learning opportunities from each category in every class I teach. 

My technique classes encourage rigorous and sometimes risky physical encounters with one’s own body. In doing so, I help students let go of their self-censoring behavior. I use my training in anatomy, kinesiology, meditation, and leadership to help students stay focused on themselves and their own goals. I use the techniques of ballet, modern (coming from a lineage of 

Horton, Limón, and post-modern styles), physical theater, and contemporary improvisation (Gaga, Forsythe, and Contact Improvisation) among others, to develop bodily efficiency and ease. By concentrating on body-mind functioning, students come to enjoy the research rather than pushing through it. Technique becomes a tool for exploration and expression, rather than an end in itself. 

I encourage punishment-free exploration in dance, and students begin to create a way for themselves, rather than fitting into a preexisting path. In order to do this, they must employ critical thinking. Each class, I have the students create their own learning goals. They are asked to share these goals with others, assess their progress, ask for help, and report on any newly found information. I utilize open-ended questions, peer critiques, and anonymous feedback in order to assess my students’ and my progress. I participate in these processes, and students are invited to comment critically on classwork and offer suggestions. I rarely tell my classes what to do in absolute terms. Instead I invite them to be curious and look for the answers themselves, noting that nuanced results are often more accurate. I create a rigorous atmosphere for critical inquiry by maintaining professional and ethical standards. By cultivating rational observation and a sense of perspective, students are equipped to succeed in a world that is evermore reliant on self-leadership, assertiveness, and innovation.

In addition to focusing on our self, we must interact with empathy and awareness when dealing with others. I utilize the tools of restorative discipline to instill a sense of safety in this regard. By holding each member of the group accountable, including myself, students come to see our classroom as a micro-community. Each person is considered an important part of a whole, and we work on maintaining a supportive environment. By modeling a healthy community in a dance classroom, we create artistic leaders who can return to their own communities and model that same healthy communication, collaboration, and leadership.