About My Practice
As an artist, educator and collaborator dedicated to emergent practices that support curiosity, experiment, and play, I examine what being human means by connecting to messy, ordinary and extraordinary bits of life. I seek to uncover meaning and inspiration for creative practice by excavating the body and interrogating its relationship to its environment and community. Utilising lenses of cultural and multi-species exchange that celebrate and promote diverse experiences, inquiries delve into themes of identity, relationship, memory and place.
Informed by training in dance theatre and butoh, an education in art and information science, and embodied improvisation research, the work exists at an intersection of analogue and digital approaches as live performances, costumes, videos, soundscapes and computer code. These elements converge to manifest projects, performances, installations, residencies and labs in diverse settings including site-specific, digital, stage and gallery spaces and catalyse embodied experience, connection and transformation.
Fellow creators and witnesses are invited to channel their curiosity and imagination and encouraged to immerse themselves in a visceral experience, forging connections not only with the art itself but also with themselves and each other. Through this interaction, individuals can gain a sense of self and shared humanity, unveiling new dimensions of their own identity and place in our world.
My work has been supported by Arts Council England, CoLab Sunderland, National Trust England, Asheville Area Arts Council, and North Carolina Arts Council and presented in Mexico, Germany, Italy, the US, and the UK.
Since 2002, I have taught digital media and computer programming as a community college instructor. I am Safe Zone trained, trauma-informed, and have gained ACUE Certification in Effective College Instruction and Advanced Certification in Effective Teaching Practice. Since 2015, I have facilitated butoh-based improvisation classes, modules, labs and workshops.
Recent Projects & Shows
Upcoming in 2024: Collaborator on Miranda Whall‘s ongoing project, When the Earth Speaks, Dirty Ensemble. Group performance with Julie Becton Gillum, Jenni Cockrell, and Rebecca Schoenecker at The 14th Asheville Butoh Festival.
2022-23: Lead artist, Blue Wave, a series of all-female, site-specific, improvisational dance performances delivered in various coastal locations along the North East seascape. Commissioned by Co/Lab Sunderland for SeaScapes. Funded by Arts Council England and National Trust, the project includes creatives from within each participating community and members of Friends of the Drop-in, Sangini and the North East Migration Project. Participants celebrated their diverse cultural identities through a variety of activities including dance, visual journals, and sustainable costume-making. Performances at Tall Ships Festival in Hartlepool and the Autumn Beach Festival in South Shields, UK. Produced by Moving Art Management. Photos by Colin Davison. More information.
2021: Lead Artist, Blue Wave, a site-specific community dance project designed to connect participants to the bioregion. The project was commissioned by Co/Lab Sunderland, a creative engagement project for SeaScapes marine heritage project. Blue Wave was co-created with members of FODI Sunderland (Friends of the Drop-In for Asylum Seekers and Refugees) and members from Sangini in South Shields. Participants were supported through a variety of activities over 9 weeks to create and perform an original dance that was based on their experience and expressed their unique relationship with the seascape. The project culminated in a live performance at Roker Beach near Sunderland, UK. Photos by Colin Davison. More information.
2019-20: In February 2020, I produced and performed with six collaborators in four unique events in a month-long residency at GAS Contemporary, North Shields, UK. In 2019, I premiered a new performance, The Beautiful Us, at the 13th Asheville Butoh Festival; performed in Fremd ist dein kleid (Strange is Your Dress), under the direction of Felix Ruckert at eXit’19 festival in Germany; and performed at the Miniatures Butoh Dance Festival in Ruvo di Puglia, Italy. Screen-based works were included in the Asheville Art Museum’s Appalachia Now exhibition and in Beyond Knowing at the Asheville Area Arts Council.
2017-2018: I was an artist in residence at Revolve Project Space. Residency projects included Entanglements, a collaboration with Linda Larsen, Adam Larsen and Kima Moore; ReSound, a collaboration with Sonic Parlor and Denice Carbonell; Frame + Form, a screen-dance festival with dancer, Sara Baird and Am I Who I Am?, a solo exhibition of screen dance + a live performance and an album. I also performed at the Black Mountain College Museum’s {Re}Happening festival. In May, 2018, I debuted a new performance, The Daydreamers’ Ball for Strange and Broken Things at Asheville Butoh Collective’s show, Dirt, Dreams and Death. The piece was also performed at Breeze Creative’s Project Space, Newcastle, UK in July, 2018.
2015-16: Projects include an Experimental Studios artist residency at Breeze Creatives, Newcastle, UK; the Just Gather Film Festival, Edinburgh, UK; Help! at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle, UK; Black Mountain College Museum’s Interlude festival, Asheville, NC; Context, Pretext, Subtext: Words in Art, Art in Words, Mars Hill University, Mars Hill, NC and the 10th and 11th Asheville Butoh Festivals.