Artist Statement

 Dance was my first emotional language, the way I learned to communicate with others and make sense of myself. My work—whether it takes the form of a dance, a collection of photographs, or an installation—always stems from movement, from the energy within my dance practice. Choreography is the way I process, reflect, and engage.

I see choreography as a space for structures to define themselves, for themselves. My role as maker is to tend to these structures and direct them outward, like a signal, a light, an offering. Beginning with the body, my physical inquiry extends to create an atmosphere or ecology for the work. The sensorial experience of sound, movement, language, and visual design combine to create a kind of weather, a seasonal shift for the viewer to experience. 

The felt sense of my body in relationship to landscapes, imagery, and poetic associations drives my work forward. My aesthetic is informed by my upbringing in the Pacific Northwest, by the foggy collisions between familial loss and magical thinking that I experienced there. In this way, my work is oceanic, but not about the ocean; my work is of, rather than about, this geography. I also see my work as an inherently feminist practice, and, embolded by feminist tradition, I engage with the grotesque and deeply personal.  

My perspective has been shaped by many artists who have come before, those who have done the brave and bold work of knowing themselves through their creativity and their commitment to experimentation. My training was situated within a studio and university setting inextricably linked to systems of white supremacy, erasure, and cultural appropriation, and I work within my dance practice and my community to better understandand ultimately dismantlethese systems.