Artist Statement

I choreograph worlds that are gauzy and based in memory. I grew up in a house of poetry, a galaxy of words that influences my dances. There is poetic logic engrained in everything I make, from dances to doodles, from soup recipes to speaking French. I am not a precise baker but a cook interested in experimentation. I cook up dances that mix modern dance vernacular with French and English, poetry, video, and pedestrian movement. My dances start with language and move towards movement. My time at the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange radically shifted my notion of what dance is and who a dancer can be. I choreograph dances because I believe wholeheartedly that ordinary bodies can do extraordinary things; I believe that anyone can dance and that everyone should dance. My work doesn’t end with a period but rather with ellipses…allowing audiences to question what they have seen. My dances open windows and doors. My dances unclutter attics filled with memories, magnifying ant-like voices. My dances speak.

Teaching Statement

As a movement educator, I believe it is my responsibility to use my individual strengths and gifts to help students learn. I believe in multi-disciplinary pedagogy. My diverse approaches to teaching are rooted in my experience with the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange (now Dance Exchange). Liz Lerman, a pioneer of intergenerational modern dance, taught me that "everyone can dance.” This teaching philosophy has pushed me to believe that anyone can learn when given time and varied learning approaches. I believe that every student's voice matters as part of shaping a variety of modes through which different students learn. By utilizing teaching strategies that speak to all types of learners, from visual to kinesthetic learners, I create learning environments that lead to comfort and community-building and unique choreographic movement creation. I teach students how dance can exist in many different forms. As a student and educator with learning differences, I try to find pathways in my teaching that open up my pedagogy to include a wide variety of all learning styles.

Pedagogically, I utilize a wide array of teaching strategies and modalities in my teaching. As a perpetual question asker, questions are a fundamental part of the environment that I create for students. I reinforce repeatedly that “no question is too small when learning about the human body.” This openness allows for students to feel they can learn and question alongside each other. Creativity and a pedagogy of questioning are central in ensuring students remain interested and excited about the learning process. Creating space for questioning gives students agency and autonomy in creating a classroom environment that is conducive to their diverse learning approaches. Questioning can lead to using resistance to effect necessary change in the academy. Improvisation and creating alongside one another creates a sense of play and whimsy in the classroom. I believe that a student’s individuality shines when space is made for their own creative voices and difference to be expressed. It is in each student’s difference that often, as educators, we grow and learn more about the uniqueness of each student’s learning trajectory and journey. I use a combination of choreographic toolbox techniques including build-a-phrase and equivalence and dance theater teaching modalities. Some of these modalities include improvisational exercises, somatic experiences, and verbal prompts, creating a safe space within my dancing classroom. Students are asked to do free writes and to work collaboratively; it is in working in groups and in working as a whole class that we build community.

As a movement educator, my overarching goal for students is for them to leave with a greater understanding of what their body is capable of doing. By pushing our bodies physically through a combination of rigorous improvisational and technical elements, we, as a learning community, support each other in the learning process. I often remind students that physical tasks become easier once we sleep on them and let our nervous systems quiet down to process. A large part of my pedagogy is in building community in the classroom through collaborating with others. I believe in creating community values that uphold certain standards of behavior and that give students an opportunity to voice what matters to them personally. I believe there is power in each student’s individual voice, and I infuse moments for students to build upon and express their own power and agency in our classes together, through leading exercises and through creating their own choreography. Some of these community values include respecting diversity and diverse life experiences, creating space for dialogue and meaningful questioning, the golden rule, accountability for personal behavior, and honesty and integrity with all classmates. By working in groups, students are able to open up and share their own perspectives on movement and dance, further enriching the classroom experience for all.

 Another goal of mine in the classroom is for students to realize that dance is so much more than what is projected on screens and on stages. I believe in a version of dance that lives in the pedestrian, that lives in site-specific explorations outside, and that lives in somatic explorations that give a greater sense of our internal structures so that we become more aware of how our skeletons move through the world. As a movement educator I help students develop a better sense of their proprioception and their awareness of where their bodies are in space at all times. A student that cultivates this type of awareness in relation to their kinespheres as well as negative and positive spaces in the world becomes an even more 3-dimensional human being.

As someone passionate about dance and education, I find myself feeling the most alive in the classroom. I teach because I want to help others find their own voices, creative and otherwise. I teach because I believe there is so much to be learned about the human body and because there is always so much more to be discovered when working as a learning community. I teach because of a long line of educators (including family members) who instilled in me a passion to help, to ask questions about the world around me, as well as a belief in learning as a tool of resistance and power.