Research Interests

My research has been dedicated to bringing the body to ways of knowing and learning in relationship to researching, writing, creating and teaching. As a scholar who is also a dancer and poet, my research is located within the fields of curriculum theory and arts-based research. My career long contribution to these fields has been to develop embodied ways of inquiry as a way of knowing. I teach embodied forms of writing in my graduate classes on Embodiment and Curriculum Inquiry which are taught across three cohorts: arts education, health education and contemplative inquiry.

My scholarly activities are at the intersection where the following fields meet: curriculum theory, arts-based research, dance, somatics and spirituality, poetic inquiry, contemplative and holistic education. As a performance artist, I integrate dance and poetry into site-specific performances in the natural world. This work informs the growing fields called ecopoetics and arts-based environmental education.   At the heart of all my work is the integration between body and mind, physicality and spirituality, and an emphasis on connecting the personal and universal.

Keywords:

·       Arts-based research, curriculum theory, embodied inquiry

·       Somatics and spirituality, dance as a way of knowing, holistic education

·       Poetic inquiry, ecopoetics, arts-based environmental education