The human animal needs to create as much as we need to procreate. My work is about providing people an opportunity to engage in creation and performance, especially people who don’t (yet) see themselves as musicians or performers. Whether it’s a song that is rewarding for a community taiko group to learn and play - and for their audiences to watch - or a collaborative found percussion popup or a residency provided in a Title I school, I help humans connect with their own creative potential, and the way that potential increases exponentially when they enter into the work with others. My goal is to erase the distinction between “musician/performer” and “audience”- we are all both.
Most compelling to me are projects that call people in to create something together. This team creation - the connection it fosters, the mutual trust it requires, the interdependence necessary to bring the work together in a meaningful way - meets a human need often neglected in “developed” societies. The embodied experience of a communal social structure seeps into the psyche of all participants, eventually altering the way they interact in their daily sphere. Over decades, this is what will move our world towards equity, justice, and love.