Community Artist & facilitator
Hello! Welcome to my website! I am a graduate of Arizona State University with a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Theatre for Youth & Community and a graduate of Texas Christian University with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Theatre and Psychology. I currently work as a community-based theatre artist and facilitator in the Phoenix area alongside my job as Coordinator Senior of Student Engagement and Wellness with the Herberger Institute for Design & the Arts at ASU.
A little bit about me personally: Just a few of my favorite things are dachshunds, cats, hiking, matcha with whole milk, audiobooks, and spices like rosemary and basil. I enjoy other creative activities like making string art, and I love finding hidden gems in my city with friends. I am a wholehearted believer in saying "chunk" instead of "chuck" when talking about throwing something across the room, and nothing makes me happier than connecting with someone, showing a friend that I care, or hearing someone's story.
my values & Work
As a theatre artist, I participate in the art form in a variety of ways (including as a performer, designer, and dramaturg), but my favorite roles to fill are as a director and a creator of new works, specifically pieces of theatre aimed directly at fostering compassion toward individuals or groups in our society, educating people of all ages on an overlooked topic, or inspiring audiences to imagine new possibilities for the world around them. For this reason, some of the work that gets me most excited fall within the realms of community cultural development, applied theatre, theatre for social change, and civic practice. I also love to partner with local organizations to further their missions through collaborative artistic projects. I have a passion and calling for social change/justice and using the performing arts to achieve it. I often enjoy devised and interactive works, too.
As a facilitator, I have worked with a variety of groups (including former evangelical Christians, high school students of migrant workers, pastors, and undergraduate students), and I prioritize adaptability to the needs and energy in the room. I aim to integrate multiple modes of engagement and often bend toward drama-based tactics.
As a community organizer, I prioritize reciprocity in projects and seek to integrate input from stakeholders consistently throughout. I also seek to incorporate evaluation procedures, asset mapping, and an honest assessment of what projects are most beneficial and address a lesser-addressed need.
Below I have listed some of my most important values both personally and professionally. Take a look to see what I seek to incorporate into both my work and my life.
COMPASSION
Compassion stems from but moves beyond empathy to embody a level of love and care that I aim to demonstrate to all people. It mobilizes empathic concern in a way that builds someone else up and tangibly works to improve their situation, taking into account their individual autonomy and feedback. In my work, I seek to contribute to a caring and uplifting environment for my fellow artists, view every person and character through a compassionate lens, and pursue works that make everyone involved more compassionate along the way.
HONESTY
Honesty represents an effort to dignify oneself and others, not only through seeking to align one's actions and words with truth and ethics, but more importantly through an earnest effort to live as oneself. In my artistry, I seek to reflect life truthfully, employ ethical principles in my own artistic process, commit to responsibility, and seek out genuine, human connection with others.
storytelling
While perhaps not strictly a "value," storytelling is perhaps the most powerful tool we have to facilitate perspective-taking and equip people to engage in compassion for self and compassion for others. It offers a safe space both to uplift our humanity and challenge our biases. While I seek to surround myself with storytelling in many forms, theatre presents the most potent form of storytelling at our disposal, and I hope to emphasize these storytelling components to create positive change at the individual and societal level.
creativity
I believe that creativity is an integral element of a healthy, kind, progressing, and innovative society, and thus it is important to intertwine creativity with my process as an artist. It is my hope that breaking the bounds of the immediate imagination in my art can encourage others to think beyond the confines of their own perspectives and their own situations.
Other values
A Non-Exhaustive List of Other Values of Importance to Me & My Work:
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Vulnerability
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Joy
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Authenticity & Sincerity
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Companionship
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Anti-Racism
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Selflessness
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Human Connection
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Learning
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Conscientiousness
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Shame Resilience
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Empathy
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Equity
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Forgiveness
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Curiosity
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Kindness
Below is my ethical statement & a manifesto of the role of community artists in society:
My theatre artistry, scholarship, and facilitation root in building and extending creative practice in compassion and connection toward agency and liberation. In partnerships and collaboration, I prioritize responsiveness, reciprocity, transparency, democracy, power-sharing, collective imagination, and centering community values and stakeholders. I believe designing for accessibility of all benefits everyone. I employ art to cultivate connection and elevate the rich humanity of all members of a community. I commit to the ongoing, imperfect unlearning of oppression in myself and the active subversion of oppressive tools such as shame, violence, and punitive action. I endeavor to continuously understand the power and boundaries of my art form, aiming to honestly portray its limits and assets as a tool.
