As a scholar and artist, my scholarly pursuits center around an interdisciplinary framework that helps broaden perspectives of what the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality achieves socially, culturally, and politically, but also within dance studies. I distinctly believe in dance and performance as an embodied practice that deepens our understanding of the ways in which knowledge is produced; and thus, dance provides a powerful means of exploring the gendered, raced, and sexed body in society and culture. My philosophy here points towards a dance studies model combined with an African diasporic perspective that uniquely mine possibilities steeped in theory and practice. Most importantly, however, my pedagogical philosophy and passion for education views diversity as a foundation for enriching the lives of all students. It does so by cultivating the rich exchange and rigorous engagement of ideas essential to critical thinking within any educational setting.
My research interests include the social construction of gender and the performance of masculinity in multiple spaces and contexts (e.g. concert dance, popular culture, vernacular dance, dance in film and everyday life). My curiosity lies in bridging the corporeality and lived experiences of marginalized black dancing bodies. It views their subjectivity and multidimensionality as integral to understanding their relationship to space, nation, and state through measures that police and discipline the body, which complicates the ability of the queer body to pass unmarked or not. These concerns also approach the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality of the queer black male dancing body in American contemporary culture with an emphasis on social justice.
Pursuant to the above my research interests include: Critical Dance Studies; Performance Studies; Western Theatre Dance History and Theory; Dance in Non-Western Cultures; Dance Education and Pedagogy; Gender and Sexuality; Feminist Theory; Queer Theory; Masculinity Studies; African American Studies; Black Diasporas; Critical Race Theory; Oral History; Ethnography; Dance Technique (Modern, Jazz, Contemporary, Musical Theatre, and Afro-Caribbean); Choreography; and Composition.