TEDx Hackney. London, England
“Conflict is a Place of Opportunity”
Lincoln Center’s Global Exchange Art X Conflict, NYC, US
“What Can Choreography Reveal About Conflict?”
California State University’s Professional Development program
“Changing the Conversation: Principles of Conflict Resolution”
Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, US
“Conflict Resolution for Scientists”
The Massachusetts Collaborative Law Council, US
“Conflict and Possibility in the Practice of Collaborative Law”
The German Dance Prize Symposium. Essen, Germany
Keynote Talk: “Conflict and Physical Thinking”
Annual Conference of the Association for Conflict Resolution: “New Voices”
“Choreography and Conflict”
Duke University, Durham, US
“The Use of Choreographic Thinking in the Creation of Participatory Events”
Service Corporation International Women’s Leadership Conference
Exploring tools to engage with the challenges and opportunities offered by conflicts arising in the field of end-of-life services.
University of Bern, Switzerland
“Conflict and Action”

THE EXCHANGE invites participants into the question:

How do we as individuals affect the level of violence in the world through our thinking and actions?

Developed in collaboration with the MichalDouglas Kollektiv, The Exchange offers a physical framework from which to reflect and exchange on individual and global violence mechanisms. Participants are invited to consider what they believe about the use of violence, where they learned those beliefs, and how those beliefs focus their attention and actions in conflict.

In the current national and international atmosphere of heightened division across racial, religious, and ideological lines, violent interactions increasingly become a common, if unwanted, norm and a sense of hopelessness often arises. Through the actions of listening, speaking, and walking, The Exchange offers participants a way to consider the effect that we, as individuals, have on the systems of interaction that we take part in daily, and how positive change might take place.

Click here to explore this project further.

The project is supported by Culture Department of the City of Cologne, Germany, the Land Ministery NRW, the Kunststiftung NRW, the Center for Contemporary Dance, Cologne, the University for Music and Dance, Cologne, ZAIK, the Atelierhaus Quartier am Hafen and the Orangerie – Theater am Volksgarten.

Knotunknot is an interactive public event that uses simple physical motion as an instrument of communication, allowing participants from diverse communities to exchange on questions of belonging, nation, culture, and place.

In Knotunknot, participants begin by grouping and re-grouping in response to a series of questions as they are invited to take a literal, physical stance according to their own beliefs and experiences. This common action both illuminates the intricate patterns of community and renders the apparent borders between groups more permeable.

Following this action, the participants dive into a shared conversation on their experiences and beliefs. During these discussions, a real-time spatial translation of the conversations also takes place. In a process developed by Dana and Tomaso Carnetto, Director of the Academy of Visual Arts, Frankfurt, Germany, participants unknowingly leave traces of their physical gestures on the tables where they are seated during discussions, producing a graphic translation of their dialogue in marks of ink on paper. Revealed after the dialogues, these complex images become objects of contemplation as the participants walk through them, reflecting on the nature of their connection during the event.

VIOLENCE : RECODE was created in collaboration with communities around the world and adapts to the local questions and circumstances of structural violence.

Using images, physical action, and sound, Violence: Recode illuminates a question posed by anthropologist Paul Farmer:

“By what mechanisms do social forces ranging from poverty to racism become embodied as individual experience?”

Participants are invited to engage with a series of simple physical postures that are placed in counterpoint to a changing series of descriptive picture titles. A group of musicians surround the participants and create a rhythmic framework that contains and drives the pace of the event.

Produced in partnership with Vermont State University.

Created in collaboration with students from high schools in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, Three Counter-Movements to Violence is a choreographic dialogue on the impact of violence on youth. The event is based on the question the youth raised:

“Is there a difference between the physical punishment of children and violence?”

The project generated a platform where participants could engage with and without words–moving through the room on a path choreographed by their own ideas and beliefs. The group created an event where each participant, regardless of their movement agility, acts as an integral part of the exchange.

Created in collaboration with students from the Lyndon Educational Alternative Resources Network (LEARN), the East Burke School, and the Saint Johnsbury Academy in Vermont, with the help of Karen Holmes, Ingrid Mahler and Colleen Twomey.

Produced in partnership with Catamount Arts Center, Umbrella, and the Community Restorative Justice Center, Inc. in St. Johnsbury. With the kind support of the Vermont Community Foundation, Ben and Jerry’s, the Catamount Arts Center, the Vermont Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts.