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I am a theatre and performance studies artist/scholar who is active in applied performance and creative climate communication. I engage in performance to co-author and actualize an equitable, survivable, and thrive-able future for all life and the ecosystems upon which all life relies. This applied approach to performance is explicitly for positive social change and is characterized by process-oriented work on an issue identified by the community. It often takes place in a non-traditional performance space (live or digital) by participants who may not identify as performers, and the work together need not result in a performance: the critical reflection and resulting social action that emerge from the process are paramount. My approach is highly interdisciplinary, borrowing theoretical foundations and histories of practice from women and gender studies, feminist ecology, voice pathology, education, environmental studies, sustainable development, and applied theatre.

As an Associate Professor of Theatre and Environmental Studies at the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ I co-director of , an initiative for creative communication on climate, I toured an original musical Shine to Rockefeller Foundation 100 Resilient Cities locations to facilitate youth voices in resilience planning, and published the book . Open Source Materials for Shine are available through the . As co-founder of I recently co-published a  for vocal empowerment for young women’s civic voices that is  with Dr. Chelsea Hackett and the MAIA Impact School in Guatemala. My book  includes my work specific to gender equity in Panama, Guatemala, India, Nicaragua and the Navajo Nation. My life as the youngest of a family of ten and my mother activist work is featured in the award-winning documentary Mother: Caring for 7 Billion. My book, , is an in-depth study of Malaysian shadow puppet theatre based on research and performance training as a Fulbright Scholar in Malaysia.

As co-founder of the former Mothers Acting Up (2002-2011), I toured a program in partnership with Philanthropiece Foundation entitled, the MOTHER tour, to locations around the world to create a global community of mothers moving from concern to action on behalf of their most passionate concerns. The tour included an original one-woman performance (M)other and a workshop I developed entitled Empowering Mother Voices. In conjunction with this program I developed a methodology specific to gender equity in clean energy development using theatre as a tool to include the voices of the women living in poverty in the planning and implementation of development projects in Panama, Guatemala, India, Nicaragua, Namibia, and the Navajo Nation. I presented on this work at the World Renewable Energy Congress in Abu Dhabi in 2010, the World Renewable Energy Forum in Denver in 2012, and the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio in 2012. 

I live in Boulder, Colorado with my life partner, JP, with whom I have raised three children, Peter, Melisande, and Lerato. Each of them has contributed significantly to what I have been able to create. for examples of my creative work, from Moving Murals to Solar-Powered Shadow Puppet Theatre.