I believe unity is our power and diversity is our strength. An open mind empowers me to hold and work with disparate refractions of truth. My favorite way to disrupt is through humor. I joyfully embrace the concept of serious play—in the words of Albert Einstein: “Play is the highest form of research.”

I currently work as a professor of acting and collaboration at Virginia Tech, and plan to relocate to Chicago in Fall 2021.

Creating new work in ensemble invigorates me. As a leader, I believe in igniting creativity and building relationships. Creative freedom and productive conflict instill deeper levels of trust. Building safe spaces for passionate and authentic expression supports bold leaps into uncharted territory.

The human body continually fascinates me. I have acquired many tools to inspire artists to tend to their own instruments. I encourage loving kindness for the human instrument through creativity, authentic movement, postural awareness, self-expression, community bonding, mindfulness, empathy, nonviolent language, and anything else that works really.

The dance of conscious self-management and unconscious abandon compels me. It is vital for me to spend time upside down every day.

I like to think of myself as a collection of bones inside of a meat sack. I work with subtle energy and believe in unseen forces. After all, we are governed by what we can’t see: think gravity, emotions, electromagnetism… I can feel emotional charges in others and I can read the energy in a room. I consider myself a dreamer, and believe in the power of dreams to influence creativity. I want to listen deeply, connect, and create. My mission is to live a life of creativity.