I am a painter, inside a ballerina, inside a tattooed time bomb wrapped in a pink ribbon. I value ballet, not for its surface pictures but for its fundamental insights into gravity, anatomy, and space, and in my 15 years in the professional ballet world I began to distill some of the core principles of ballet movement. As a choreographer, I use those principles outside of the narrow confines of ballet aesthetics, moving the dancing body beyond the ballet vocabulary, beyond a state of restating the familiar, and into a body that is not afraid to bend, twist, balance, fall, stretch, and be still.
My work is process-based, heavily influenced by my time with Siobhan Davies and my collaborations with video artist Tobin Rothlein. I begin with research-gathering information and source material that will provoke my dancers and collaborators. Using assignments, images, and improvisations we generate personal, detailed material, particular to these bodies, this moment, this subject. Then, like a painter, I combine, collide and collage the materials, looking for the poetic insight that the body can bring, and for the personification of the stories, states, and relationships that are uniquely dance.
I am conscious of the complete visual picture: the size and scale of the stage setting, the proximity to the audience, and the integration of all the performance elements. My work seeks to engage the audience by opening up a visual world where they find personal connections and have an emotional relationship to the work, and to the dancers.
My years as a ballet dancer provide a disciplined and physical structure from which to work, while my studies in contemporary choreography have given me the tools to push beyond those aesthetics, finding movement and imagery that are relevant to each moment, and each performance.