RESEARCH OVERVIEW
My research investigates the relationship between moving bodies and digital interfaces, examining how cameras, screens, and virtual environments mediate embodied experience, social connection, and meaning-making. Working at the intersection of screendance, interactive media, and somatic practices, I approach documentation and media-making as choreographic acts that shape perception, representation, and care. I enjoy developing audience participatory experiences that reimagine the relationship between digital technologies and and somatic embodied knowledge (mind/body/social connection).
These four projects demonstrate my sustained inquiry into embodiment and mediation: BodySleuth explored virtual community-building during the pandemic through gamified somatic experiences; Ancestral Imprints used site-responsive screendance to investigate ancestry and landscape; Feelings Playground created participatory installations for collective emotional exploration; and Camera-as-Collaborator documents a decade-long research-practice in embodied documentation of live performance.
My work contributes to screendance scholarship by centering ethical collaboration, somatic awareness, and the question of how movement-based media can hold space for both embodied presence and intentional disembodiment within trauma-informed, care-centered practices.
FOUR EXAMPLES OF CURRENT RESEARCH:
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Current Research Directions
I am currently exploring:
- how and what and why we document creative work and who it's for (documentation practices)
- examining racial bias embedded in camera and computing technologies
- gathering somatic practices for people moving both behind and in front of the camera (cinematographers/dancers)
- developing embodied game-based interfaces for embodied knowledge
- exploring how screendance practices can intentionally center marginalized bodies and communities historically excluded from dance media representation
- storytelling frameworks for screens, live performances, and online presence
- pedagogical approaches to technology literacy in camera and computing education
Graduate Research
Prototyping Social Somatics through Virtual Embodied Playspaces
What are the moments that re-embody us in the midst of extensive screentime? When do we remember that we are more than fingers typing and eyeballs drifting over the digital screen? How do we transpose the experience of our bodies as both sensorial and social through a virtual screen? Where are there opportunities for creating informal moments of connection and shared experiences that deepen social ties through embodied experiences via virtual platforms? How could we use play to move between the 2D and 3D screens to re-embody our physical world? How do we find ways to deepen friendships and build community using technology? My research draws on my background as a multi-genre dance and media artist, student of anthropology and somatic practices, and my professional survival skills as an event organizer, creative practice cultivator, movement aficionado and educator.
These questions come from a talk I gave for Leslie Smith Collegium in 2020. I highlighted prior and current research for my thesis project which explored the creation and performance of building community through online virtual platforms and interactive tactile objects (BODYSLEUTH PROJECT). Possible theories of influence included game design, site-specific and immersive theater, scenography, phenomenology, constructivism, practice-as-research, and race, ethnicity, and queer studies in relationship to dance and technology.
Prior projects that informed my ideas around social somatic prototyping and virtual embodied playspaces included:
WOVEN - a proscenium stage and live camera performance that explored the relationship between fabric and identity through eight strips of fifteen foot fabric worn, carried, thrown, wrapped, stretched, and rearranged through the stories of nine dancers
Moving Scenes - a scenographic audience participatory pop-up performance space
Spine Sensing - a wearable spine with microcontroller sensors that supported exploration of spinal range of motion and patterning through social gameplay
Legend of Thule - a narrative somatic alternate reality game
Dear Postcards - a virtual environment of an experiential somatic museum
BodySleuth Project - a hybridization of virtual world building, game play, immersive theater, dance performance, somatic exploration, and digital scenography to re-imagine possibilities for a more welcoming world.
RESEARCH AREAS:
EMBODIED APPROACHES TO DANCE & TECHNOLOGY
SCREEN DANCE / DANCE FILMMAKING PRACTICES
DECOLONIAL YOGA & SOMATIC PRACTICES
EMBODIED KNOWLEDGE & SYSTEMS OF THE BODY
DANCE MOVEMENT PRACTICES
DANCE FILMMAKING & DOCUMENTATION
INTERACTIVE & IMMERSIVE MEDIA DESIGN
GAME DESIGN
PLAY & INNER CHILD PRACTICES
RACE & ETHNICITY
GENDER & SEXUALITY
DANCE & TECHNOLOGY PEDAGOGY
CULTURAL, SOCIAL, HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE PRACTICES