Growing up in central Pennsylvania, I received a most precious gift from my teacher. A love of moving. Not just following steps or wiggling to music, but true exploration. Fast and slow, sharp and smooth, high and low. I was presented with a vocabulary of endless possibilities. Because of this early experience, I find joy in exploring the capabilities of the human body, mind, and soul. I rejoice in each discovery I make, and in the discoveries of others.
In those early years I studied creative dance side-by-side with traditional concert dance forms. My desire to further my skills and knowledge led me to continue my education as a college student. Immersing myself in investigation, I explored techniques with an understanding of how the body functions. I obtained a sense of those who had come before, those who had explored and made discoveries just as I was doing. I absorbed all I could from my teachers, choreographers, and peers. I was encouraged and given the tools to become a dance artist and to guide others in their own discovery of dance.
It is with these tools that I continue to learn and grow in every experience. All that flows from me, draws upon all I have poured in. I continue to carve and shape myself as a performer, teacher, writer, wife, woman, mother. I seek to discover and understand the world around me and inside of me. I am a work in progress.
On Working with Young Dancers…
Like a flower that continues to grow when all is against it, even negative environments have spawned beauty. But only the hearty survive. To grow a garden of children that value dance as an art form, value themselves and those around them, and flourish not only in dance but in life, requires that adults (teachers and parents) make every effort to provide favorable conditions. It doesn’t happen just because the potential is there.
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