Teaching Philosophy

I teach dance studies, performance ethnography, choreography, pedagogy, and contemporary dance technique.
 
My goal as an instructor is to awaken and inspire students to think and move. By bringing my curiosity and sense of discovery into the classroom I act as a model that students can use to develop their own commitment to thinking and moving. In this way, teaching is a practice. It's a performance of critical awareness that inspires students to realize their own ability to perform this awareness.
 
Since I work as a scholar and practitioner:

• My classes in dance studies and studio classes inform how I research and create dance. In this way teaching becomes a wonderfully reciprocal practice that helps me generate scholarship and choreography.

• Teaching techniques classes help me carve out time for embodied practices.
• Teaching helps me stay in dialogue with emerging scholarly and practitioner-based work.
• Teaching provides an opportunity to argue that dance is not an isolated artistic and physical activity, but a thriving interdisciplinary field within the humanities and social sciences.

 
I love to teach because:

• I want to think, question, and dance for the rest of my life.
• I love helping students find their voices.
• It makes me feel alive. Since the work of discovery is unpredictable, the possibility of failure is present, which makes me feel alive.
• It’s an opportunity to be in a room of people who are trying to do their best.
• Connecting with students helps me stay connected with the joy of dance.
• It helps me to see the beauty and integrity of people.
• It makes me feel like I’m a part of something that matters.