Aptly described by The Washington Post as “a storyteller at heart, with a penchant for the theatrical,” I am a choreographer, performer, educator, and artist-scholar who believes in the power of art to cultivate compassion, spark dialogue, and imagine new futures. I am Artistic Director of Gesel Mason Performance Projects and Professor of Dance at the University of Texas at Austin.

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My practice weaves together performance, scholarship, and archiving, using dance to question assumptions, confront inequities, and build possibilities for care and connection. Grounded in Black feminist methodologies, I draw on embodied knowledge, lived experience, humor, and vulnerability to create work that is both disruptive and healing.

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For over two decades, I curated and performed No Boundaries: Dancing the Visions of Contemporary Black Choreographers, honoring the artistry of Robert Battle, Rennie Harris, Dianne McIntyre, Donald McKayle, Bebe Miller, David Rousséve, Reggie Wilson, Andrea E. Woods Valdéz, Kyle Abraham, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. Recognized as a New York Times Critic’s Pick, the project created space for African American voices too often pushed to the margins of the field. Today it continues as the No Boundaries Archive Project, which I co-direct with Rebecca Salzer of Dancing Digital and the University of Alabama. Initially supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the archive continues to expand as we explore how dance can care for, preserve, and transmit choreographies and legacies that are frequently excluded from both physical and digital histories.

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My current choreographic project, Yes, And, begins with a question: Who would you be, and what would you do, if as a Black woman you had nothing to worry about? Developed in collaboration with communities, each iteration generates practices of rest, resilience, and radical imagination. The work has grown through partnerships with Dance Place, Fusebox Festival, Women & Their Work, Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens, Jacob’s Pillow, and Bates Dance Festival, as well as through site-specific dialogue in St. Maarten. It has been supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts, Texas Performing Arts, and the National Performance Network.

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As a performer, I have worked with Repertory Dance Theatre of Utah, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, Chuck Davis, Murray Louis, Victoria Marks, and Jacek Łumiński/Silesian Dance Theatre. I was also a company member of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange (1996–2000) and Ralph Lemon’s Cross Performance Projects (2004–2012), where I collaborated on groundbreaking works that blurred the boundaries of dance, theatre, and social inquiry. These experiences in particular shape my sense of how dance can be a vehicle for inquiry, dialogue, and transformation.

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Along the way, I’ve been fortunate to receive support from the National Endowment for the Arts, MAP Fund, Whiting Foundation, and YoungArts. My choreography has been presented by the John F. Kennedy Center, American Dance Festival, the International Association of Blacks in Dance, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, and many other venues and cultural institutions. I’ve also been honored with a Rauschenberg Artist Residency, and recognition in Dance Magazine’s “30 Over 30” feature.

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At the heart of my work is that little girl dancing in her living room with her mom—imagining new worlds, and creating space for others to see themselves reflected on stage. Thanks for visiting.

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