I am a choreographer, theatre-maker, educator, and dance studies scholar. My work regularly explores the productive tensions between written texts, the body as flesh-and-bones, and the body as text. I love to work collaboratively and am deeply invested in multi-modal work. 

My current work focuses on notions of assimilation and authenticity. Drawing on my experience as a “pocho,” I explore the cultural performances, double-codings, and embodied techniques of both “authentic” and “inauthentic bodies.” “Pocho” is a Spanish term that has traditionally been used to refer to assimilated Latinos as “cultural traitors.” In my case, as an assimilated Mexican-American, I address my pochismo, by integrating my own experience with ethnographic data and collaboration with other artists to produce choreography/theater and scholarship.

I hold a PhD in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and my book, Dances of José Limón and Erick Hawkins was published by Routledge in 2020. It examines the work of U.S. modern dance choreographers, José Limón (1908-1972) and Erick Hawkins (1908-1994). Focusing on the period from 1945 to 1980, I discuss how their work adapted pre-World War II choreographic conventions to meet the changing nexus of whiteness, Latinidad, and masculinity in post-World War II America.

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