Be open to meeting new people and discovering new things about yourself, your family, your history, your community and the planet. This openness will invite more abundance into your life, expanding your art circle. 

Having a creative community is invaluable. Creative communities are an invaluable source of resources and information, having value too great to measure; priceless. 

Zora Neale Hurston once said, “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.” I am here to help amplify the voices of the African American French Creole dancer/ culture bearer and storyteller. My artistic approach and practice contributes to my community in ways that reflect my upbringing as a child of South Louisiana and daughter of Dance. My kinesthetic language is robust; a patois of African, American and European ideals— from classical African dance to European classical forms, hip hop and folk dances found throughout the African diaspora. The infinite variation I offer through the work I create or perform whether; on large scale stage productions like Disney’s Frozen: Live at the Hyperion, and operas like Parable of the Sower, in academia, for commercial film and television such as the National Basketball Association and the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympic Games/ Rio2016, on world renown ensembles like Cleo Parker Robinson Dance and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, or just a little diddy I’ve done in my living room, my creative work is layered with soul, intellectual rigor and curiosity, scholarship and grace.

My artistic practice is motivated by stories that amplify and give insight to the oppressed. My practice comes directly out of and in response to my upbringing in french speaking music and dance communities surviving on the pillars of race and racism in Southern Louisiana. Through the practice of telling stories, I realize how offering more insight of the oppressed helps my audiences understand conflict more comprehensively.

I credit Kaplan, LA as the birthplace of my storytelling and continued in the cities I grew up between, Lafayette and New Orleans. I observed how the foundations of race and racism continually functioned as barriers to  community self-determination, self-sufficiency and engagement. For example, we were called  “negresse” often in Kaplan. It occurred so much I thought it was a term of  endearment from white families who hired my grandmother to clean their kitchens. Being one of two black children in my pre-school, I was prompted to say,  “M is for monkey and Millicent” for our graduation ceremony. And, it wasn’t until college that I realized everyone on my grandmother’s side of town raised their own hogs, geese and chickens in their backyards out of necessity. Once I could identify and evaluate the racial and economic inequalities in my community, and the effect those specific inequalities had on my family, from there I began tracing back the  path of the African Diaspora through the Caribbean, South America and the continent of Africa. What I learned confirmed for me that these observations around race, class and culture were essential to my work as a choreographer, dancer, teacher, filmmaker and storyteller. 

“Thoughts of a Colored Man” Behind the Scenes

“Symphony For the Dance Floor” Behind the Scenes”

“Party People” Audiences Respond

“Cubamor” Behind the Scenes 

“Bamboula Backstage”

Choreography Reel