As a former soloist with The Philadelphia Ballet Company, I have always believed in the power of dance to communicate where words fail and only feeling exists. My research agenda has centered on this belief, striving to utilize this strength to make the world a better place. My creative projects began as I felt dance could capture attention and be universally understood in an innovative way. This thought lead to a foundation for my deeper investigation of how dance artistry can be useful to impart valuable information. This steered me to produce videos that wove tapestries of dance to tell stories on behalf of bullying, dating violence, and suicide awareness. Each of these videos had a significant impact, as they have been utilized world-wide by school systems and organizations including the Pan American Health Organization, The Los Angeles Unified Public School System and The Centers for Disease Control amongst others. The organizations were eager to have these artistic tools for use in programs they had in place or wanted to create on behalf of their respective issues. They all cited that the videos helped to create an emotional connection, a key strategy in engaging audiences about the subject matter.
Bullying video: https://youtu.be/h3wWUq0fJWA
Cyberbullying video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3GXvwzzKKY
Dating violence video: https://youtu.be/n5aImnAZA2g
Suicide awareness video: https://youtu.be/v3YX5OL3pNI
SDGs addressed through this project:
