I am an artist-scholar, and my research focuses on visual and sonic imagery as applied to artistic process, personal wellness, and creative expression. I am fascinated by the ways in which imagery can transmit viscerally, on a somatic level. Sounds and pictures are short-hand communication systems and can often circumvent language and cultural barriers.
My methods are multi-modal, including performance as research, dance science, technology-assisted dance training, ethnographic methods including oral history, archival research, and biomechanical experiments. The projects I undertake are creative collaborations with artists in other disciplines (theater, music, and video technologies), biomechanical and social science-based fields (Kinesiology, Linguistics and Integrative Medicine), and international dance artists in scholarly publications that unpack intercultural artistic process and influences. The role of imagery in performance practice, both for creative process as well as product, is threaded throughout these multidisciplinary projects.
One of my core research interests in recent years has been Butoh dance—a Post-WWII avant-garde Japanese movement style that has a unique approach to imagery. This research has resulted in a book and several journal publications as well as 15 conference presentations and 20 invited lectures or workshops. Butoh dance combines the use of imagery with a focus on somatic experiencing in the creation of new works. In seeking to understand and share the fundamentals of butoh, I engaged deeply with artists, including more than 30 important Japanese, U.S.-based, and Mexican artists as well as theater artists who work with butoh or related physical theater methods. In my book, Butoh America, published by Routledge in 2022, I have completed the first text documenting stories of influential Japanese artists as they toured and/or emigrated to the United States and Mexico in the 20th Century. Radical performance artists, drag queens, experimental musicians, and visionary presenters emerged to greet them, drawing butoh into the fabric of cutting-edge North American arts. I gather their histories and trace the development of butoh since the 1970s. The book catalogues valuable performances and describes artistic processes including the significance of visual and sonic imagery in performance training. The text both archives this important work and increases access for contemporary artists seeking to develop their own praxis.
My current projects define my own butoh methodology applications in the interdisciplinary context of my position as the faculty lead for the Dance Wellness curriculum in the Department of Dance at The Ohio State University (OSU). I have begun collaborative research with several OSU colleagues in Linguistics, the Advanced Computing Center for Arts and Design (ACCAD), and Integrative Medicine. In this new research, I build from the methods of artists I have studied for my scholarly publications, and connect sound and imagery in distinct ways, particularly through technological expansions such as Virtual Reality (VR).
Shortly after arriving at OSU, I started a long-term movement imagery project in VR project with Japanese artist Minako Seki and collaborators at ACCAD including staff researchers Vita Berezina-Blackburn and Jeremy Patterson, and Alex Oliszewski, Associate Professor, Theatre, Film, and Media Arts (TFMA). We are producing a VR teaching tool that can be incorporated into future composition, improvisation, or cross-disciplinary courses for Dance, TFMA, and ACCAD students. Our goal is to immerse students in a multi-sensory, image rich-landscape to enhance their movement expression.
To focus more directly on sonic imagery, I am also collaborating with Linguistics Professor Cynthia Clopper, conducting an experiment through the OSU Language Pod at the COSI Center of Science and Industry in downtown Columbus testing participant correlations between movement and sound cues. Our findings will be important to the study of vocalization in teaching dance.
Beyond the creative potential of vocalization, I am also interested in the healing applications of sound and breath. To this end, I have begun a collaboration with Maryanna Klatt, director of the Center for Integrative Medicine, and Dance Assistant Professor Alfonso Cervera in a study of the impact of yogic breathing and postures. The focus of our collaboration is developing stress- and anxiety-management strategies for college Dance students.
My research is psychophysical, meaning that I assume a relationship between the intellect, emotions, and physical flesh. My work aims to build awareness and improve communication among distinct aspects of self. Theorizing performance methods as I do in my book, ties directly back into my studio practice and teaching, which in turn informs my written scholarship and experimental work. Imagery is the lens through which I draw these connections; it is a tool for bridging these different epistemologies. I plan to continue these research projects, expand the networks of artists and researchers with whom I collaborate, and publish on our findings so I may further the impact of my work.