My artistic practices reflect into my teaching practices and my teaching practices reflect back

into my artistic practices. There is not one without the other. I believe what is important in the

time we live in is how people show up in a room together. I am trying to reimagine the form and

the system of a classroom. How do I show up in a room with humans in a way that embodies

allowance and space for everyone. My interest is with the creation of something new. Utilizing

BIPOC, feminist, and queer theories as the foundation I facilitate the making of new ways of

being with one another.

I am interested in de-centering the classical and outdated forms of the teacher holding the

knowledge. I wonder with students on how we can horizontalize these systems so that everyone

might be able to present a more present version of themselves and their desires. I cannot deny

that there is an automatic power dynamic that happens when someone with the label “teacher”

enters the room. My interest is how we might, as a group, re-organize, re-formulate,

re-assemble the relationship amongst the gathering so that we have more options into a

conversation with each other. This is the moment that expansion is made possible.

The practices that support this moment are grounded in listening. Listening so we might know

how to dance with ourselves and others. I facilitate opportunities for humans to sit with

themselves and become interested in the most inner part of themselves so that they may be

able to depart from there and meet others who are sharing parts of themselves. When a sense

of trust and vulnerability is created then an impact can really start to take place. If there is

change in the singular then there is change in the multitude.

I believe we are constantly communicating. Communication of our ideas is the force of our movement towards

something new.

I am not so bothered by WHAT we do in a room together, I am bothered by HOW we do the

thing in the room. Because how we do things in a room together changes us so that when we

exit the room we can impact those around us. It changes how we love our family, or how we

love ourselves. The HOW is what is investigated in the room by the many new containers being

created. Things are tested and tried on. This is where the trust and vulnerability will be

tested...failure is something to continually get acquainted with, and maybe re-acquainted with.

These failures lead us somewhere else and the “somewhere else” can change the world.