Artistic Statement

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My artistic practice is rooted in the competitive sector of private dance education and informed by my lived experience as a professional commercial dancer. Working across competition studios, classrooms, and professional stages has given me a sustained and critical vantage point on how dancers are trained, evaluated, and prepared—or left unprepared—for sustainable careers in the dance field. I draw directly from my own trajectory, from being an overlooked back-row dancer whose potential was doubted, to performing on major stages many are taught to believe are unattainable. This lived experience allows me to prepare dancers with honesty, clarity, and practical insight into the realities of the profession.

As a Black woman educator and choreographer, I use my work to illuminate pedagogical practices and aesthetic hierarchies that often marginalize talent not aligned with Eurocentric standards. My creative and educational practice engages embodied and theoretical inquiry, examining emotional development in youth dance alongside the racialized aesthetics that shape how movement is produced, read, and valued—particularly within hip-hop and commercial dance contexts. Through choreography, improvisation, and mentorship, I investigate how racism becomes embodied through movement vocabularies, performance expectations, and evaluative frameworks, and how commercial dance operates not as a monolith, but as a site of cultural negotiation, appropriation, and resistance. This inquiry informs my commitment to ethical creative processes and culturally conscious pedagogy that recognize dancers as whole people rather than solely as performers.

Collaboration is central to my process. I work alongside dancers as co-creators, drawing from their lived experiences to develop socio-emotional works that prioritize authenticity, accessibility, and joy. I employ multiple modalities—movement, dialogue, improvisation, reflection, and narrative—to expand pathways for expression and to engage social justice concerns through dance. My work does not strive for perfectionism; instead, it resists Eurocentric elitism by honoring multiplicity, cultural hybridity, and embodied truth. Influenced by both my Afro and Anglo-American experiences, my art embraces duality and celebrates the communal roots of Black dance practices.

My long-term goals are to generate new knowledge, explore underexamined areas of dance research, and contribute meaningfully to higher education, guest artistry, and advocacy. Whether teaching, choreographing, or mentoring, I aim to challenge normalized harm, expand definitions of excellence, and help dancers envision futures that are sustainable, affirming, and rooted in integrity. I am deeply committed to learning, creating, and using dance as a vehicle for both joy and critical inquiry.