Choreography

Artist’s Statement

I believe the body can speak profoundly. I seek to create nuanced situations that allow that to happen. I view the body as a site of discovery, a locus of possibility, and an indicator of cultural trends and emotional conditions.

I consider choreography a lens through which I investigate, translate, and transform my own experience in the world. Though intensely personal, dance is not “mere” self expression; I view the choreographic process as a visceral and intellectual pursuit.

Dances enact a space for possibility. In daily life, if a new acquaintance offers her right hand as an introduction or thank you, we understand that gesture is to be met in a handshake. But in dance, gesture is less denotative. Any gesture invites infinite possibilities in reply. Dance garners its poetry through unexpected responses. In making dance, crafting those dialogues becomes my responsibility.

I think of myself as an architect of relationship. Making dance is a process of arranging a series of relationships. The continual, dynamic reformation of those relationships gives the work its shape.

I consider my dances products of shared authorship. I am committed to making dances that invite the subjective experiences of each dancer—in process and product.

Visceral experience is full of information. I probe its subtext. I look for irony, things that arrest themselves suddenly or evolve patiently. I seek to expose human fallibility as an affirmation not a curse, turn awkward interaction into a beautiful truth, honor the exquisite harmony of bodies moving in concert with one another, and craft their dynamic interaction. In movement, I work to build tension between the soft and languid, the thick, the loose, the forceful and energetic, and the thrillingly abrupt. As interested as I am in the action, the myriad meanings of movement vocabulary, I am equally interested in the negative, in inaction, pauses, stillness, and empty spaces, which punctuate composition.

I recognize inter-subjectivity as an empirical constant. I trust that dances leave an imprint. In my work, bodies fill empty space and sculpt it through motion. They change the texture of space and leave their memories behind.

I assume nothing about how viewers meet the work, but hope that images and the languages of situation and of movement become contagious in their ephemerality. I challenge viewers to reconcile both familiar and unfamiliar ideas, images, and circumstances.

Choreography creates tangible representations of intangible experiences. As a result of witnessing human journeys along vanishing paths, viewers construct meaning by completing those paths in their own images—tracing their memories and actively completing the performers’ journeys.