My professional journey has been about chasing interesting questions and examining the human experience.

Act I

I started as a professional dancer and choreographer using the studio as a rehearsal space for real life, coaching performers in connecting to themselves in order to connect with their audience. Movement became a metaphor, a mode of inquiry, a means to synthesize information.

As a kid, the dance studio had been a place for me to discover myself, my strengths, and to use movement to imagine a variety of outcomes while at home I navigated the illness and loss of a parent and all the complexities that brings.

In this Act, I earned a BFA in Dance from Western Michigan University, danced professionally in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles, then earned an MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from the University of Michigan.

Act II

I moved to the field of education where my students taught me how hard it is to exist in a world that isn’t really made for you. Other people’s rules, other people’s ideas, other people’s preferences tend to dominate the spaces we say are about and for students. Then we wonder why they are behaving the way they are.

My classroom became a laboratory for social-emotional learning in and through the arts before these buzz words buzzed. I applied what I had researched in grad school when exploring how to alleviate the physical symptoms of post-traumatic stress and I kept experimenting. I taught my college students how to connect dance to any major and minor on campus.

During this Act, I directed K-12 dance programs in urban and suburban settings, directed a college dance minor program at a liberal arts school, and served as artist-in-residence for many 4- year college dance programs. During this time, I learned about polyvagal theory and started recognizing evidence of this in my own experience as well as in my classroom. This became one of my most significant tools for coaching students in their art-making, studies, and college/career-planning.

Act III

I started consulting in arts education yet continued to work in movement with clients facing chronic stress, traumatic brain-injury, chronic disease, and more. I deepened my brain-based methods by working with Trent McEntire and polyvagal training with Deb Dana. I joined Deb’s training team, working with therapists/counselors/coaches from around the world.

Act IV

As the Professional Learning Director for the Michigan Arts Education Instruction and Assessment project (MAEIA), I create and coordinate Professional Learning for Educators and much more. I frequently present on Embodied Practices: Culturally Responsible Teaching and Authentic Social-Emotional Learning with Nafeesah Symonette. I share how to support students, with nervous system regulating methods, through classroom management to instruction to assessment so that interventions are the exception and not the rule.

I completed my Life Coach certification through Life Purpose Institute and now support private clients through a combination of nervous system education, creative process, and life/career coaching.