Creative Work

Dance is my way of understanding of the world around me and the world inside of me, and it makes me human in the most divine sense. Thus, as a dance maker, I can tell my stories, and in the process, connect to the stories of others. When I experience a work of art that speaks to what it means to be fully engaged in the struggles life or that inspires me with a vision of hope and beauty, I am reminded that I am not alone. I want to give that experience to others.

This desire for communication guides the choices I make as a choreographer. My movement is physically expressive and emotionally driven. I strive to make each dance a world full of visual imagery, impressions, poetry and humanity, and any other elements of a work, from costumes to technology, are used to serve this value system. I also believe that the dancers’ roles are vital to the creative process, as dance usually happens in community. Therefore, my work is often a combined statement of my own and the dancers’ voices, making the dance more powerful because of the many hearts, minds and bodies that are engaged in telling the story.

My hope is that the audience will incorporate their own story into my dances and leave with a greater understanding of their lives. To that end, I am exploring experiential ways to engage the audience in performance through immersive, site-specific methods and through technology. However, whether I am using traditional or experimental means, my guiding value is connection - connection with the viewers, connection with the performers and connection with the self. Art can create understanding of what it means to live and to find our place within our community, and my aim is to use movement to expand that understanding.