artist statement

The project of creative work is to make: the artist the work and the viewer the meaning. A line from performer to audience draws contact. In the telling moments of viewing a vulnerable body on stage, reading a compassionate essay, or staring into a painting, I recognize craft, rigor, and vision. But more importantly, I feel like a guest in someone’s life. 

My choreographic and video works highlight space, time, and imagistic properties. I love clear lines, barren images, and intricate interpersonal dynamics. When choreographing with students, I create work that pushes their dynamic range; when working with professionals, I capitalize on the dancers’ facilities. Likewise, in graduate school, I have pushed my creative and physical boundaries, for instance by dancing in Anna Sokolow’s 1968 Steps of Silence. Professionally, I seek out performance opportunities wherein my natural theatricality and physicality suit the work. My recent work in the Jenkins Farm Project with Beserra Dance Theatre, exemplifies my dance theatre tendencies.

Dance is not universal. I don’t see dance works expecting to understand someone else, but I do see dance works expecting to interact. I crave evocative, mysterious, and visually astute compositions; I endeavor to work with a delicate but courageous hand. In choreography for stage and screen, I concern myself with the formal properties of time and space and the complex sensations of dancing. Using these elements, I exploit both the richness and sparseness that images of the vulnerable performing body can impart.