Artist Statement
Alvin Ailey said, “The audience comes to the theater to be entertained; if you can take these steps and show yourself through them, that will be an extraordinary experience for the audience.” As a young performer, I held onto those words, striving to unearth and present my authentic dancing self to the audiences I had the privilege of performing for around the world. Now, as a choreographer, I am more deeply engaged with Mr. Ailey’s words than ever before.
My early creative processes were driven by a simple goal: not to reinvent the wheel, but to ensure that audiences would come back for more. Today, my creative process is deliberate while remaining deeply explorative. By using my personal perspective, I aim to elevate underrepresented voices and strive to provide theatrical accessibility to a more diverse audience.
My work often challenges cultural assumptions, encouraging audiences to engage with dance in novel ways. Rather than limiting myself to a single technique, I boldly attempt to reimagine the possibilities of dance by blending various techniques and styles to create a unique vocabulary that is more than contemporary; it is of the moment — it is NOW.
My objective is to utilize the familiar to challenge audiences’ theatrical experiences, shifting them from the expected to the unexpected. The works I create embrace risk — in both form and content — and employ unexpected structures or juxtapositions to provoke thought, spark dialogue, and, above all, entertain.