I believe in the transformative efficacy of student-centered, equitable, and inclusive learning environments through heightened somatic awareness and interdisciplinary dance-making that evokes embodied knowledge. My pedagogical training embraces the art and science of movement through the continuous practice of embodied curriculum theories gathered from the Tamalpa Institute, Evans Somatic Dance Institute, Dance Studies Association, and the International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association. My current teaching philosophies and practices draw primarily from Gaston Bachelard's and Maurice Merleau-Ponty's body-oriented phenomenological research and Joan Skinner's somatically-centered, interdisciplinary Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT). 

 

As an evolving interdisciplinary dance artist and researcher, I thoroughly resonate with the interdisciplinary synergy of SRT as this practice coalesces movement with guided imagery, creative writing, poetry, and musical environments in a way that naturally evokes access to creative agency and enhanced dance technique through deep bodily knowing. The nature of this practice supports my ability to create a nourishing space that invites creative experimentation and artistic risk—in turn, releasing the pressures to rush through a sensation due to peer comparison and time expectations as we traverse beyond the dependencies of our existing comfort zones. I thoroughly value SRT's inclusivity of diversity, adapting to movers at any level, pre-professional and professional dancers, actors, musicians, and artists of all kinds. This quality allows me to interweave collaborative breadth and depth that both challenges and catalyzes each student's sense of embodied receptivity and creative agency within themselves while in relationship to others. 

 

In efforts to create an experiential spectrum for my students, I often infuse SRT explorations with anatomical and kinesthetic experiences such as integrated bodywork, somatic yoga, experiential anatomy, Authentic Movement, and Qigong Shaking within my classes. Cumulatively, these practices induce varying levels of deep bodily awareness, openness, ease, and spontaneity within my students, gradually guiding each individual into a heightened sense of receptivity within their own bodies, reinforcing their inborn capacity for creative agency and enhanced technical skill through embodied knowledge. 

 

As a teaching artist for Contemporary Dance Fort Worth, I observed one of my pre-professional dancers experience an enhanced receptivity to her moving body along with an increased comfortability with creative risk and technical skill due to the somatically-centered and exploratory nature of our SRT. In turn, she gradually connected the physical/technical elements of movement with the imaginative/creative, expressing that this synergy felt more accessible, more human; her dancing grew in expressivity that was unique to her individuality, growing simultaneously in both skill and artistry. 

 

Similarly, as a visiting teaching artist at the University of North Texas, I led a hybrid somatic practice workshop for a mixture of different majors, including dance, biology, elementary education, music, sports medicine, theatre, etc. I can recall the gradual transformation of a young music major from this class. Initially, he was disembodied and full of energetic tension. I observed his gradual resonance with our Qigong Shaking warmups and experiential anatomy studies. The simple act of shaking and physically feeling different body parts naturally initiated a heightened awareness and sensitivity to his own body. In turn, this, along with the interdisciplinary musical elements familiar to him, infused throughout our self-paced SRT explorations, led him into a greater ease and sense of agency with his moving body in relation to his peers. 

 

Essentially, the inherent emphasis of the moving body as a locus for exploration within my classes humanizes our pedagogical experience, allowing each unique individual the freedom to deepen their relationship to bodily knowing while actively exploring creative agency as it relates to dance technique, choreography, and, ultimately, their own journeys as artists and human beings.
 

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