Artistic Statement
As an artist I seek to express a feeling, a moment, a memory, a situation that can touch the audience, and the connections that happen between people. More importantly, I am interested in reaching the dancer’s soul in a way that relates to them on a personal level. I aim to include text, a relationship to personal life experiences, and I more recently have been incorporating my own music and sound. I’ve grown as an artist in the exploration of the face or facial expressions as part of the dance itself and not just a vehicle to show the emotion of the piece or the character. Composition is my favorite form of therapy and self care, but I also think that it can be therapeutic to the audience who is watching. I believe it can have the power to be healing, inspiring to an artist, and allow the watcher to enter a different world away from the troubles and worries that can take over our daily lives.
I am specifically interested in working with dancers of all capabilities and I believe that having a disability isn’t a restriction for choreographic exploration, but yet an opportunity for even greater possibilities. Since I have struggled with my own disability, I’ve learned to embrace what strengths and movement choices are available to myself and the dancers I work with instead of trying to push something that isn’t there or natural. I have found that working with a wheel chair can add a greater force or speed than the human body can create on its own on stage. I also discovered that crutches of all kinds can add dimension and an extension of the limbs, body, or a shape created with a group or solo that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. I’m also interested in combining the many genres of dance that I’ve studied and love into my choreography, as not to compartmentalize dance, but to use it to create new flavor to contemporary/ modern dance. I enjoy working with lines, geometric shapes, human connection, physical connection, and I’m moving more and more toward minimalistic work.
No matter what ability or disability the group of dancers I’m working with pertain, my choreography is always based on human the human experience and connecting to the audience in a way that is may awaken the spirit of the viewer in a therapeutic way. Maybe the audience can relate to it or maybe it just stirs something inside of them. I also find it important for the dancer to find a connection to the choreography when performing that helps them discover something new and/or bring out a piece of them that can be shared with the world. It brings me true joy to see both young and old become inspired by dance. I hunger for others to feel the same happiness that I feel is created from watching a performance and that is why I continue to create.