Artist Statement

As an artist, I dance because it is a birthright, it calls to me as one of the purest forms of expression.  Through the language of movement and using one's body as an instrument to construct visual narratives, my work explores the human body and its capacity to convey embodied interpretations of experiences.  This creates space to challenge conventional concert dance and investigates alternative modes through a decolonial approach to dance.

 

At present, my research examines how an interdisciplinary approach, drawing from visual art forms, serves to reimagine physical thinking in dancers.   My combined research practice and pedagogical approach investigate methods that explore new movement possibilities in dancers through making visual art images to merge with the process of creating choreographic works through Score reading and improvisational movement tasks.   I seek to analyze different levels of understanding and application in various levels of dancers.  This practice explores equitable practices through the collaborative development of meaning-making and material reconfiguring as dancers work together through material-discursive practices of entanglements.  A shared agency arises in the materiality of the body, visual art, and the intra-action in and through the choreographic process.  

 

My research moves beyond movement produced in the studio or the dance to be performed on the proscenium stage and culminates into a performative platform to be captured in site-specific film.  Deciding on the site and developing a soundscape for this phase of technology is dependent on the impressions generated during the creative process.  The interconnected relationship dancers make with things and other people within the environment is an extension of threads that designs the fabric within our society.  In analyzing various modalities a choreographer can engage with to create works of art, I want to empower dancers in celebrating their ideas in exploring their creative voices. 

 

Influenced by sensorial stimuli, the imagination motivates questions that guide a process in ways that go beyond western classical approaches to dance technique.   Creating a purpose to explore choreography contributes to unity between people, their relationships with one another, and their ability to share their art with the community.  My ambition is to arrive at a deeper meaning of choreo-pedagogical forms and functions and inspire future generations to develop ever-evolving, socially engaged performing arts practice.