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“The teacher is of course an artist, but being an artist does not mean that [they] can make the profile, can shape the students. What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves.”

― Paulo Freire and Miles Horton, “We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change”, 1990



The art of telling the truth is a necessary and a healthy way to create powerful and positive connections among people who, otherwise, remain (unknown and unaware) strangers.

I often divide my courses evenly between the scrutiny of published works, and the development of new storytelling works made by the group. Together, we discover what stories we are called upon to tell about ourselves, our community, and our future. We endeavor to attempt the building of a community of trust in which all may be truthful and deeply serious in the messages we craft for each other and the world.

I ground my teaching practice in the ethics of storytelling. Through stories shared on identity, culture, place, and belonging, students witness with awe our intersections and distinctions. We build community through story in order to create a climate of openness, shared commitment, and intellectual rigor applicable to any context.

As a teaching artist with Pink Fang, I develop interview-based theater projects, adapting real people’s stories into collaborative performances that explore cross-cultural connection. I also lead explorations of urbanism and creative placekeeping that places people, our environments, and our collective histories at the center.

I have facilitated courses and community-based workshops in the U.S., UK, Canada and Norway for youth, adults, older adults, and intergenerational communities in Applied and Devised Theater, Art and Social Change, Community Cultural Development, Community Engagement and Civic Practice, Documentary Theater, Mind-Body Practices,  and Theater of the Oppressed.

Past Work Highlights:


  1. Instructor, Introduction to Applied Collaborative Techniques (I-ACT), Virginia Tech Center for Communicating Science: Creative principles of applied theatre to develop capacities for connecting with others. We apply experiences (deep listening, oral history, storytelling, etc.) to learn fundamental lessons about cross-sector and cross-cultural collaboration

  2. Lead Artist Facilitator, The Clinic Performance: Arts-based workshops and immersive performances in hospital settings grounded in research on burnout and secondary traumatic stress, working with 1,000+ healthcare workers during my tenure

  3. Co-Instructor, Integrative Practices for Health, Wellbeing, and Resilience, Virgina Tech and  Theatre 101, Southeast Community & Technical College at Harlan Detention Center

  4. Guest Instructor: Human Development II: Adulthood and Aging, Virginia Tech and Agriculture, Global Food Security and Health, Virginia Tech
     
  5. Designer and Facilitator, Theater of Change, Columbia Law School