ARTIST STATEMENT

Dance-making is my way to courage. I am a believer in the strength of sharing our vulnerability and humanness, and I have found through choreography that offers up our bodily knowledge, we move out of the cross-hairs of judgement and toward empowerment. Here, we take control of ourselves in such a way that dares to be told there 'isn’t enough room for you' in the chorus of all other bodies. 

Because no bodies echo as profoundly as honest ones. And I seek out dance in all bodies.

So in my practice, I seek that out and hold dance up to time like a scalpel - each rehearsal, discussion, collaboration, and performance is part of the process, peeled back layer by layer. Our relationship as collaborators, as artists - as people - is tied to sharing our human experience, as completely as possible, with all audiences. Unexpected bodies, telling unexpected stories and personal histories, in order to bring unexpected change.  

I see change enacted through art and how our cultural landscape becomes transformed through movement, and sharing beauty beyond the mainstream. My company is a Miami-based, intergenerational and physically integrated dance-theater company that creates performance in public spaces, museums and galleries, stages, schools, and film. We believe that every body dances, and every body carries validity and virtuosity. Rooted in social practice and community, our collaboratively-devised work celebrates queerness, humanness, and vulnerability. Through innovative performances, deep community engagement, and ongoing workshops and residencies, I collaborate with like minded artists to address social justice and equity. The heart of this work resides in dissolving barriers, bringing real bodies and lived experience to the forefront. 

Ongoing activities include the creation and performance of original contemporary dance works for stage, screen, and non-traditional spaces; the facilitation of panels for the general audience and community workshops use dance, storytelling, and performance techniques that amplify agency, identity, and resilience.

A Memory of Dance

One of my best memories is standing on the tops of my mom's feet as she danced around the living room. I remember the feeling of shifting from one foot to the other, the continuity of her movements and my role as her abiding partner, neither controlling nor directing the dance but a part of it nonetheless.

When I was nearly 10, my mom passed away from Lupus complications. After she passed, I would stand in the middle of the living room, close my eyes and try to recreate our waltz. Everything I knew about dance came from her. So how could I not then begin to associate all that dance is, and has become for me, to the passage of time?

I see time radiate in the bodies of dancers whose limbs and hearts hold decades of somatic study. I see time peeking out from behind the blinds of bodies who were told too often that they should not or could not dance. And I see time sped up in those same bodies as they hold even tighter to dance in order to make up for time lost. I see time in my own body - failed relationships and successful diets, busy schedule and tight bank account ironically doing just about the same thing to keep my artistic piety on the right side of time.

So I dance to be brave in the face of time.