artist//mother

At 14, I began my professional musical theater career under the direction of Debbie Allen whom I spent summers training with in LA. I attended Point Park Conservatory for the Arts, majoring in Jazz dance and then at 22 I moved to Istanbul Turkey. Between 2012-2016 was asked continually to return as the artist in residence at many venues, but namely at SuperJazz at Mandarin Oriental Bodrum Turkey, Supperclub Istanbul, W Hotel Istanbul and NOPA indoor garden in Istanbul (pictured left). I reached a level of celebrity in Turkey as a finalist on The Voice and as a featured judge on two seasons of FOX primetime singing competition and British concept show Benimle Soyle (Sing With Me). In 2016, I was featured in ALL Magazine in an interview spread about my work as an artist entrepreneur in Istanbul, where I persisted in art and business endeavors despite being in opposition to the dominantly male paradigm. I spent these formative years of my adult career based in Istanbul and performed my original and commissioned work in the commercial and industrial creative industries. Beyond the borders of Istanbul, I've cultivated and performed my creative processes in Paris, London, Prague, Shanghai, Rome and now I am making my mark in the New York City performing arts industry. I am currently in my final year at The New School, obtaining my Masters degree in Arts Management and Entrepreneurship, as well as performing in residency at Duane Park premier burlesque supper club.

The generative stages of my creative works are born from a restful place in silence and darkness. When I sit in the generous womb of creative potential, an evolution develops in an organic state of allowing. I look to nature to inform my approach, timing and aesthetics. I am informed by the oral and written history of my ancestry and especially look to all of the mothers in my life to inspire my legacy work. My fathers mothers were forced into arranged marriages before many finished grade school. My mothers mothers were formerly enslaved Africans and Native Americans whose voices were stifled & muted by the wickedness of colonial imperialism. In order to transcend these limitations, my people have alchemized their pain to create rhythm and blues, the dozens, stand up comedy, Turkish folk music, and vaudeville performance. I set my intentions as a performing artist to be a walking liberation of the women of my past, utilizing my living, transforming history as kindle to ignite my work and inspire a galvanized mission to perform in as many countries as possible. This alchemy is my spiritual endeavor to further progress these art forms with the mediums of my voice, movement, digital design, comedic storytelling and costume design. I approach performance as a reverence to these women who came before me. My performances always offer a sense of warmth and are an invitation into my experience. My newest original work in progress MUVA, Motha, Ma, Mommy, Mama, Mother ... is in the fundraising stage, officially sponsored by Fractured Atlas and can be found here.
