My work often focuses on evoking feelings of tension and struggle in those participating and watching in order to break down any semblance of separation between performer and audience.  The work is designed to take viewers on the journey that the performers are going through, with an added focus on the tension or struggle that the piece is highlighting. The work draws in witnesses, and provides an experimental chance to challenge perceptions, perspectives, and assumptions.  In the past, I have collaborated on projects using dance improvisation and cast-generated text as devising techniques to accomplish a full sensory experience.  I have also researched and incorporated visual and audible tools to create an even more immersive experience. A past project that exemplifies my personal process of development was an experimental dance theatre project produced at Rowan University and curated by Dr. Leslie Elkins and Beau Hancock that included a months-long development process, which resulted in a final performance titled Making Trouble.  This experiment inspires every project I create or collaborate on, and established my belief that no process is ever fully “finished” until after the post mortem has happened.

My current project in development, Tocka, is a multidisciplinary piece of performance art comprised of video projection, guided meditation, dance improvisation, and choreography.  I generated the piece through improvisation, experimental noise music, and text written by myself and fellow women who suffer with chronic illnesses.  The audience enters the space and opts to sit on the floor in the performers’ space or in chairs. The cast then invites viewers to join in the guided meditation to blur the line between working and watching space.  Tocka uses cycles of repeating choreography, breathwork, and video to slowly build tension that mirrors the stress and discomfort that comes with the cyclical nature of chronic illness.  The climax of the piece highlights the self-doubt and pain that comes when women attempt to find a diagnosis from doctors.

Moving forward in my artistic journey, I hope to continue exploring and refining my creative process, and to explore the different roles artistic and scholarly collaborators and environment(s) can have on my process -- in “hands-on” and less obvious aspects of a project.  I will continue my practice of generating new work, will explore site-specific work, and will play with interpretations and adaptations of classic texts that speak to the present.

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a retreat for artists at Barr Hill Nature Reserve in Vermont, where I worked with a small group of artists from all backgrounds to learn wilderness survival skills, breathwork, Viewpoints, and Meisner technique in an open-air classroom on a mountain.  This life-changing experience has led me to seek out new and similar environments to commune with other artists. I value the opportunity to grow in an environment of artists and creators and aspire to learn new and interesting forms of performance and self-exploration. Having grown up right outside of Philadelphia and having grown increasingly hungry for collaboration and creation during my time in the Department of Theatre and Dance at Rowan University, I yearn to build a community of artists in the city I love while developing new work and exploring new opportunities.