The through-line of my career has been working intergenerationally; in collaboration, collective action, and multi-generational creativity.
I studied with artists and designers at Parsons School of Design, I studied literature and creative writing at Eugene Lang College. I worked, designed and created for elders. This early environment of my learning: New York City was my teacher. My training taught me how to ideate, how to design, how to integrate, and how to be self-directed.
For my senior thesis in college, I wrote a play, “One Day in the Life of Henri Shnuffle”. It was an immersive, site-specific piece about one day in the life of an elderly man living in New York City. I wrote, cast, directed and creative directed “One Day” and it opened a few months after my 21st birthday. On the day of my college graduation, the evening before a show, a New York Times review came out about the work, applauding the illuminating portrayal of elders, memory and daily rhythms.
This led to my most important training in the dementia unit of Isabella Geriatric Center, where I worked bringing music therapy to residents. I learned the power of listening, the power of music, and most important the power of connection. I learned about myself - a window inside. Years later I was asked to be a board member at Isabella Geriatric Center, the youngest person in its history.
From there, I studied with dance, healing and collective collaboration pioneer, Anna Halprin. Her mentorship, vision and transformational work spoke to me on higher levels and opened up new pathways to connect with my body, emotions, story, and life. The training began with the body, with honesty, and then moved into the collective. I learned how to score, how to work intuitively in a collective, and how to connect my life with my art.
My next journey was to Nepal. I learned within a foreign country, as a Fulbrighter in Kathmandu for one year. My teachers were the people, the customs, the strength I found inside. I collaborated in a new environment with collaborators from a wildly different background from me. I formed a multi-generational ensemble of Nepali women and girls. Together we created self portraits, performances, scores, and writings about our bodies. And I learned to look from a larger, wider perspective.