Witnessing and experiencing dance as a visual art became inseparable within my dance making process, while collaborating and/or taking inspiration from other mediums – music, literature, visual art – became foundational. Therefore, it was a natural progression for me to work and create in art galleries and museums. Beginning in 1997, I created my first work for and with visual art through an invitation from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, to create a kinesthetic entry point for their museum goers. Margaret Mims, Associate Education Director for the Museum, and I began to develop our long-term partnership beginning with the Southwestern Bell Collection of 20th Century American Art using the criteria I would employ, develop, and deepen to the present day – creating a work or series of dance/performance works that illuminate the works of visual art driven via a clear and precise connection to the Visual Artist’s intention and the Curatorial Vision of an exhibition. This approach has guided my work and stimulated my thinking and dance making in visual art settings, including The Menil Collection, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, High Museum of Art/Atlanta, University of Central Arkansas/Baum Gallery, Contemporary Arts Museum/Houston, Lawndale Art Annex/University of Houston, Diverseworks ArtSpace, Dallas Museum of Art, Martin Gropius Bau Museum/Berlin, National Gallery Prague, Arkansas Arts Center/Little Rock, Varmlands Museum/Karlstad, Sweden among others. These commissions were fed by exhibitions featuring the work of Sol LeWitt, Diego Rivera, Carlos Cruz-Diez, John Alexander, Pablo Picasso, MoMA’s Heroic Century, the Diane and Bruce Halle Collection of Latin American Art, Jules Olitski, Joseph Havel, Isamu Noguchi, Dan Flavin, to name a few.

Instead of dancing on a tradition-laden stage, the museum or gallery space allowed far greater freedom and possibility of movement, integration of the spatial architecture, and a direct relationship to the works of art. From this point, I have learned to reconfigure the traditional performer-audience relationships, as viewers quickly realize they can choose and experience the performance from multiple vantage points. The decentralized spatial field of the gallery, unlike the visual hierarchy of the traditional proscenium stage, confers an equality of spaces within each gallery. Since the periphery is as important as the center, I may place crucial movement ideas at the margins and action can occur from any place at any time. Alongside my work in museums and galleries, I began to develop my long and extensive body of work for site-specific performance and performance in nontraditional spaces. I learned to find inspiration in the messy and uncertain areas that blur the lines which traditionally separate art, music, theatre, and dance. It takes curious, willing, open, and courageous producers, audience, and ensemble of movement researchers to see the magic that happens when the arts overflow their boundaries.

To begin a “creative process,” I articulate a unique approach or road map. This process guides the life of the work, from inception on through each performance of the work. This “process” provides the inherent discipline of a piece, a place to return to again, and again to be certain that the artmaking at hand is created from a truthful place. Along the way, I enlarge the circle of collaborators to include geniuses from other mediums, some artistic and others not, to further enhance, deepen, and clarify the vision of the piece. My larger role then becomes one of a sifter and shaper of ideas into a cohesive work of art.

As a contemporary Artist and Dance Maker, I focus on the creative process, movement research & exploration and dance-making as a catalyst for social change. Using the body, its potential for movement/dance, as my medium coupled with my commitment to art as a catalyst for social change, my intent is to ignite an empathetic experience, a felt sense, within communities and the public that experience my work. In the past decade, both within my life and artistic practice, the focus of my activism has centered on actions on behalf of nature - the earth, its lands and waters, its creatures - including us. I believe the awareness of our interconnectivity is foundational to our survival and art and artists have the potential to specifically employ art to create a sense of shared stakes in critical issues related to the earth, its waters and all beings – human and non-human. This awareness alongside community conversations offers the potential for solutions through a “felt” sense and understanding. I believe real change begins here.