Q: What has been your professional dance journey? ‍

My professional dance journey started at Hubbard Street Dance after attending the Alonzo King Lines BFA program for 2 years. I got into the Hubbard II company and stayed at Hubbard for 9 years after. That was the bulk of my performance career. I didn't do a lot of bouncing around to different companies. At Hubbard street, I met Florian Lochner and we started creating on the side for fun. Hubbard is such a full-time job that we needed something that felt different to balance that out. Our company, FLOCK started as the two of us  just playing and it took off from there. We started sharing things online and we got a very positive response from the people. Now it is our main thing. I still do a lot of freelance choreography and teaching as well but FLOCK is the only place I perform and I want to build upon that for a long time. ‍

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Q: Do you have any mentors or important people in your life that have shaped the way you dance and or think about dance? ‍

I feel like, for me, it is hard to keep dance as a separate category from life itself. So, I don't have specific dance mentors. As far as mentors I would say the people that shape my choices are my family and Florian--people that I know understand who I am and support me. I like doing things in the field that haven't been done before. I like finding my own path instead of following the paths others have already taken. My biggest realizations have come through talking to people that know me as a person, not just as a dancer. ‍

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Q: What have been some challenges in your pre-professional or professional dance career? ‍

Finding your place is hard as a professional dancer and as a student. Finding what it is that you value about dance and building on that and not just being something for someone else. That was a challenge for me when I first started dancing professionally--holding onto who I am and expanding that really showing people that. I was very shy at first ,and tried to be the best tool in the box for the choreographer or teacher in front of the room. But I think that made me less interesting. I feel like I had a hard time capturing how to be a performer and how to share myself openly. There are always the normal challenges of how I will support myself financially but on a bigger level my challenge was tapping into my sense of self and sticking to it. ‍

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Q: Do you believe dance can be a platform for social justice topics? If so, how? and/or Have you used your art form to make a difference?‍

I think that is something we are really trying to figure out right now as a dance field collectively. We are trying to figure out how to talk about things that are important to us and translate these stories in a way that is more than just naming a piece about it. Dance opens people up emotionally, so you can really connect on a deeper level with people on things that are important. Sometimes, I think it is done really consciously and sometimes it is not. I think it is something we need to all keep working towards. Also outside of performing, I think dance training and how culture around dance training is changing is huge and it will shift how young people feel art as well as how they feel in the world. How we adjust antique models of training will make a huge social impact and that creates such potential for young artists. That is very exciting for me to watch. ‍

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Q: What inspires you and drives you forward as an artist and a person?‍

I am obsessed with what I do. I feel like it is the love of my life and connecting with people in the studio and creating something with them that then connects with the audience which has an even larger trickle effect. I feel that is such important heart and soul work to be doing. That is a never ending drive. I never get tired of it. Before all of this virus stuff happened I decided to live on the road and work in as many different places as I could for a year and just explore a different group of people every week and that was so inspiring for me. ‍

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Q: How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected you as a performing artist?

‍As I just said I had decided to live on the road this year. I got rid of all my stuff and have been living out of a suitcase and had a whole year planned out with very little down time. Some FLOCK work and some with other people. All of that is very much in question now and the stuff happening this spring is off the table. Being somewhat without a home, I had to decide where I would stick this out and how this would work financially for me. Like for everyone it has been a juggling act trying to figure out what is best for me. Every decision has downsides and there is no perfect solution. I have been trying to think of ways to connect with other artists. I have been doing a project on Instagram where I give a weekly prompt where artists, dancers or any other kind of artist can send me their work. I then curate it and share it. That has been the highlight of this time. I have been receiving art every day from all over the world. It’s been an amazing thing to me that I never would have thought of otherwise. And I see people doing things, like you, that makes me think that maybe this is the time to connect more and think more outside of the box. ‍

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Q: What social changes and responsibilities have you seen people making during the pandemic? ‍

I have been amazed by the whole dance community’s response. We have become so open to one another. We’re not monetizing everything in the way we once were. But everybody needs more money, so it’s this weird balance where everyone understands what is going on and we’re putting away the business side of it so we can genuinely help each other out. To me that’s profound. I see that in the rest of the world too, but especially in our community. I feel like those things will have huge lasting effects once we figure this out. I think we will learn how to share training with people who may not have had access otherwise. Livestream classes should have existed a long time ago. I think everyone is taking a moment to see how they can contribute and what they have to offer that may be helpful during this time. It is a different question we have not had to ask ourselves so people are coming up with new and creative things and I hope there is a shift in landscape in how we are in general in the arts community. ‍

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Q: Using the idea of “worldmaking” how do you imagine the performing arts world after the pandemic? (Worldmaking: How you can re-imagine the world in your own terms, the way you want it to be. Using this tool one can construct new worlds and write themselves into narratives that have excluded them and systems that have disabled them.)‍

I would hope that we have a world where it is understood how fragile the arts are and how important they are and how we are all operating on this tiny thread. I think society believes there will always be a show, not fully understanding how tenuous our work is. I hope there will be more of a structure in place to support art always being more present and constant as well as having a more stable base for it. I think we have also opened a door to how we can share training and performing in a much more open way. In a future world I would hope a student without a lot of easy access to training could take classes in their kitchen and good teachers would be interested in that. There are top notch professionals offering their expertise online now and it is wonderful to see and I would hope that would continue. I also hope we get to a place where we can touch each other again. My work is so contact based and if I had to make a piece where we couldn’t touch each other, I ask myself, “would my work be interesting?” I hope we can get to the other side of this and process whatever residual fear is left over about this experience and we can be in contact again. ‍

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Q: What is one thing you think we can all do each day to lift our spirits and help uplift the people around us (physically present or virtually present)?‍

I think we can keep creating and sharing what we are making. We have so many platforms to do that. In general our feeds are full of scary things and we need to see the art that everyone is making. The art is so uplifting to see and to do. I have been making little doodles and writing. I never write. I think we can still make art during a time when we are so contained. So keep making and keep sharing. It inspires everyone once we start making and sharing. So does just talking to people. I am all alone here so it is so important for me to reach out to people on a daily basis just to stay connected voice to voice versus just emailing or texting. I think we need to always make an effort to maintain that human connection.