statement of artistry
my works are questions. they are visual, kinetic, and spatial investigations into (be)longing and othering; into vulnerability, intimacy, and rebellion; and into that which is raw, creepy, and uncomfortable. i seek to break, challenge, and subvert conventional rules and etiquette to reveal underlying beliefs about where and how we find, hold, and shape (dis)connection, power, and (non)reality.
i work with performance-making, dance, time-based media, writing, and mixed reality to explore ambiguity, liminality, (non)(be)longing, and states of in-betweenness. my work examines the multiplicity of the body, and sees the body as a portal into, with/in, and across dimensions of space, time, (e)motion, and possibility. with body-based training including modern dance, (contact) improvisation, butoh, Yorchaa technique, and somatics, and a background in civic media, generative research, critical pedagogy, liberatory facilitation, and interaction design, i root my practices in making space for complexity and uncertainty to (re)imagine radical possibilities for how we move with one another. deeply informed by feminist queer of color theory and practice, as well as critical mixed race scholarship, i create experiences that center inquiry and position performance as process, to challenge and shift power in emergent, participatory, and multimodal ways.
my mixed disciplinarity is an extension of my queer and mixed race identities. as someone who never quite fits into defined categories, who is always in-between, who is familiar with being “other,” i find belonging in the hybridity, fluidity, nonconformity, and queerness of antidisciplinary artistic practice.
i combine movement, writing, and video within liminal spaces to excavate the erotic, the messy, the ugly, the undefinable, and the elusive. my work points (us) to the interdependence of fear and desire, and to our (individual and collective) orientation(s) towards that which we do (not) want to look at. i situate performances in unconventional physical spaces – alleyways, gyms, bedrooms, lobbies, sidewalks, and cabins – to reposition performance as that which to encounter, versus that which to attend. in digitally-mediated practices, i alter dimensions of time and challenge frequencies of (in)visibility to invite audiences to question perceptions of reality. my choreography and artistic direction situate performance as body-based conversations. my text-based practices are experiments in expanding reduction, in (un)veiling exposure, in fragmenting continuity, and in (de)contextualizing vulnerability.
core influences include Sara Ahmed’s work in queer phenomenology – especially her approaches to positionality, directionality, and (dis)orientation – and adrienne maree brown’s work in emergent strategy. additional influences include Fred Moten’s and Stefano Harney’s work with/in the Undercommons; Alexis Pauline Gumbs’s work on queer Black feminist archival and time-space travel; and Chloë Bass’s multiform work exploring scales of intimacy in everyday life.
throughout my work, i use multidimensional language to explore the following questions: how might we work with/in hybrid, performance-based practices to (re)orient towards abundant and liberatory futures? what do we encounter within ourselves, and within one another, when we take part in intimate performance(-making) processes?