About My Choreography

My extensive background in ballet and jazz training, among modern, lyrical, hip-hop, and musical theater dictates my primary movement aesthetic.  This combination of movements allows for a fierce, passionate, explosive expression of movement with a calm and easeful approach of execution.  After years of dance training in a studio in a variety of dance genres and studying at a college that primarily focuses on modern dance technique and somatic practices, I have become a more intellectual somatically aware mover.  Understanding where movement initiates from has allowed me to approach choreography differently and the knowledge of Laban Movement Analysis has provided me with a greater vocabulary of expressing movement to others.   Having a vast background of movement vocabularies to select from has dictated my choreographic style.

In my choreography, I create pieces to explore movement and music, connect with the audience, and engage my dancers physically and emotionally.  Because of my musical background, I pay close attention to the music I choreograph to.  I believe music is the glue that holds a piece together.  Dance is an aural and visual experience for an audience member and when a dance is presented with a score of music, the audience hears the music while being presented with someone’s interpretation of the music in a physical form.

I choose to create dances where the music and dance are presented in a married, parallel form, but am interested in creating pieces in the future in which they are not.  When I create a piece, I am consciously aware of the type of audience that will be viewing my work.  I create pieces that explore universal themes that both my dancers and audience can reflect on.  I pay close attention to the cast in each of the pieces I create to blend my personal style of movement with my dancers’ strengths.  I find that this practice allows my dancers to find some enjoyment in the movement and find a way to not only emotionally connect with the themes of the piece, but physically connect to the movement.

My interdisciplinary education has granted me with many inspirations as a dancer and choreographer.  As a Media and Society Major and Computer Science Minor, I find myself looking towards the effect technology has on the body and the new gestures that have been created because of the growth in technological devices in addition to the effect the overuse of technology has on society for the inspiration of upcoming works.  Finally, since enhancing my media studies, I have found different ways in which artists tell stories through a variety of media like film, photography, and digital art.  I hope to use these diverse storytelling techniques in my choreography to blend dance and digital media in future works.