Artistic Statement:
My work as an artist centers on a theory that life + energy = dance. Influenced by my love for old Hollywood musicals, this idea stems from the classic musical theatre notion that when the feelings are too big for speaking, you sing, and when they grow too much for singing, you dance. I realized that I feel these urges to sing and dance in my own life and wanted to use my work to create the world where that level of expression is welcomed since I think a lot time it can be more accurate and relatable than just words. Beginning the work in reality, stories and characters are able to be abstracted and elaborated to explore the unnoticed, unfelt or unsayable moments of life through movement. To me, making a piece is like taking a sample of life and putting it under the microscope, to research and examine it closely. In reframing our everyday, pedestrian reality into art, perhaps we can see ourselves and our experiences in a new way.
The goal of my work will always be to create something that the audience wants to connect with, not to challenge them to enter into my own world, but to meet them in theirs. With a commitment to innovation and accessibility, I make work about you, me and us. Accessibility is not just picking a topic I think people could relate to or would want to watch; it is part of the process, the details of performance and the ways we can express our ideas in a thoughtful, care-filled way. It is acutely important that my work is performed by people of all shapes, sizes and skin tones and to create a practice that transcends technique in favor of expression. With movement that uses hand gestures and real, pedestrian expression as the impetus for movement creation along with insights into body language and emotional processing, the work can reach a place that intersects humanness and virtuosity. Dance is life and life is dance, there really doesn’t need to be any separation between our humanity and our work.
For better or for worse, I engage with the world through a deep longing to understand. I look around and try to find the meaning of any gesture, facial expression, posture or movement. Humans being human is beautiful to me and that’s what I want my work to be about- slowing down and taking time to appreciate what’s around us.
Past Choreographic Works:
Hover over images for descriptions and video links
Quotidian
for third row dance company
performed December 2022
Every day, each of us wakes up, gets ready and goes off into the world choreographing our own stories. Oftentimes, we are so busy doing our lives that we lose sight of the people around us and the miraculous, small moments that shape our reality. In Quotidian, you, the audience, can take on the role of people watcher to see the world that is created in front of you. With whimsy and abstraction, 15 performers each share their individual journeys through the space and time of a day.
timepiece
A piece about time from Through Space & Time: an MFA Choreographic Thesis Portfolio performed at The Michaelis Theatre at The University of Roehampton, June 2022
Gutta cavat lapidem
a solo created for traces dance festival in burlington, vt 2021. performed on leddy beach in the water of lake champlain, the solo explores ideas of water conservation and how we relate to water in our lives. perhaps the smallest interactions can have the largest impact.
mein liebestraum: that you were here
A dance film exploring long-distance love and communication
TO BE HEARD BY YOU (EXCERPT) - DUET
AN INTRODUCTORY PROCESS TO RESEARCH THE TRANSLATION OF GESTURE THROUGH THE BODY
@Site_specific_story
an interactive, instagram installation exploring the choices and how they affect our future opportunities. following the story of an outgrown friendship, the viewer chooses what the protagonist does or where she goes. with multiple pathways and various endings, there is always the chance to go back and start again (unlike real life). give it a play: link to instagram
Maßig Bewegt
a duet investigating intimacy when two people find themselves at a point of no return and every adjustment of the hand reveals the growing tension between them.
Premiered: Fertile Ground at GreenSpace LIC 2019
Performed by Zoe Galle and Sasha Rydlizky
Plastic Plates Don't Break (Film)
Inspired by the drama of the romantic, classic movies of the 40s, 50s, and beyond, "Plastic Plates Don't Break" portrays a relationship on the brink of falling apart. A peek into their daily routine, the couple comes together for a meal where tensions boil over setting off their quarrel. Accompanied by audio clips from the famous movies that inspired the piece, the couple dances through this fight with passion and emotion. After the woman can take no more and leaves, the man confronts his guilt and remorse preparing to reconcile. The last question is whether this reconciliation will last or if their strife will continue another day.
Premiered at the 92Y Mobile Dance Film Festival, also shown at DANCE SHORTS film screening
performers: Robinson Denzer and Ashley Robson
not for you.
This work is a sort of ode to the Me Too movement showing a young woman empowering herself and re-claiming her body. It has become clear that some people believe that women wear makeup or dress a certain way for men's benefit; however, I use this work to disprove that idea. This work demonstrates that a woman owes nothing to anyone but herself. As the dancer applies her lipstick as she normally would, she continues on to highlight places on her body where men may have touched or gawked at her. With her strength, she allows herself to be vulnerable continuously building up the courage to finally break free of what society portrays her as once she ignites into dancing.
Premiered with Sylvia Berman May 2018 at SUNY Purchase
Other showings:
Small Plates Dance, performed by Lauren Worley November 2018
Sentient Beings Are We
In this piece, the dancers act as parts of the emotion theory suggested by Robert Plutchik. In assigning each dancer a different emotion, I began to discover the ways in which we express different emotions through the body and how each emotion can affect the other.
Premiered Fall 2017 at SUNY Purchase
Performers: Meagan Ahern, William Byram, Nathan Crewe-Kluge, Anna Hooper, Mary McGrath, Kiersten Rist, Rachel Tiedemann
also selected for austin dance festival 2019
Marche Triomphale Du Diable
Performed at the Purchase Performing Arts Center, this work was created as part of a collaboration with the Decoda Ensemble based out of New York City. The piece, set to a the song of the same title from Igor Stravinsky’s, L'Histoire du soldat (The Soldier’s Tale), shared the stage with the Decoda Ensemble for the performance. The work was created to match the tone and intensity of Stravinsky’s score while also applying the narrative while keeping it open for audience interpretation.
The piece was premiered in March 2017
Performed by: Laura Carella, Alice Chacon, Madeleine Meyer, Sasha Rydlizky, and Jada Williams
*Costumes supplied by the costume department of the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College
**Unfortunately, video of the performance was not permitted
About: Women
A ballet created in celebration of women to show the power and strength we hold. The movements reflect the empathetic, nurturing nature of many women while empowering women to celebrate their worth.
premiered May 2018 at SUNY Purchase Dancers Responding to Aids
performers: Gianna Bartolini, Claire Cordano, Rachel Martens, Meghan Phillips, Olivia Rick
*special thanks to Tess Neil
Sentient Beings Are We at 2019 Austin Dance Festival
A Sentimental Standard
A short piece of dance set to I Got it Bad And That Ain't Good performed by the Oscar Peterson Trio. It tells the story of three woman who have entered into a jazz club attempting to cope with the troubles in their love lives. Each with her own unique problems and way of expressing it, they eventually meet and come together to find the solutions to their problems. In the grand scheme of things, this piece would have two other sections: one with their lovers trying to understand what went wrong and then a reunion where we see if the couples can really stay together or not.
Premiered March 2017
Performers: Madeline Jones, Leslie Merced, Rachel Tiedemann