What do you do for a living? I’m a pediatric occupational therapist and Feldenkrais practitioner.
What would you be doing if you weren’t doing that? Dancing, creating and collaborating with others in the performance arts world. I also might take the adventure of directing theatrical stories based on the power of being human in our complex world. Onstage I’m obsessed with portraying the lives of people who have gone through immense transformations while theatrically adding live music and performers who fly through the air, play with fire and dance flips around the audience.
What do you do in your free time? Play with my family, do yoga, make jewelry, sew, ask questions, listen to stories, watch my inner story, watch the story of the people around me.
What brought you to Santa Cruz? I’ve been coming here since I was 9 years old with my birth family when we lived in the hills of Los Gatos. Then a man named Forest, in the late ’70s, introduced me to the Santa Cruz artistic life. The first event he took me to was a Contact Improvisation Dance Workshop with Nita Little and Steve Paxton. I’ve kept coming back ever since.
What’s your favorite street? The uncharted paths in the Bonny Doon woods behind my house.
Name something you’re excited about. I love helping bodies discover new ways of moving. There is a little boy who has been constantly screaming in fear because regular sounds are too loud—now he is calmed and can start to play. A little girl fell from a balcony and lost all function of three limbs—now she begins to roll, crawl, and open and close her hand. These are miracles to me. I’ve also been known to teach bodies how to dance in the air and on the floor. I add my drop of water to this very large sea of movement.
Name a pet peeve. I’m part of a consumer culture that has not developed efficient strategies to deal with waste. Sometimes I forget my bags when I go to the grocery store, my travel cup when I am at the coffee house, and I have to drive 35 miles or more to work. The United States has access to information and education to develop technologies and healthy economics to utilize waste as a valuable resource. The US can then take this information to places that have less access to the knowledge.
What are you reading? A Mercy by Toni Morrison, The Body has a Mind of Its Own by Sandra Blakeslee, The current journals for Contact Improvisation, National Geographic and Harpers Magazine . I also browse nerdy stuff like anatomy, neuro-motor control, motor learning and sensory processing books.
What’s the most important thing you’ve learned in the last three years? To stand quietly while being ready to act in any direction. Someone can hold a knife against my neck, burn my house down, or offer me a very high paying and prestigious job. Yet, no matter how good or bad my situation is, I can never predict what will happen in the next moment. What is here now may be gone tomorrow. All I can do is discover in my mind the grace to meet the multitude of life situations.
What’s your most recent personal food trend? Beets, rice, tea, goat cheese and hot chocolate with whip cream, spiced with additives from my acupuncturist.
