The first time I have felt fully aligned as an artist, I was choreographing Legally Blonde with a local theatre company. I had moments at these rehearsals where I felt I could do this for the rest of my life and be extremely happy. That in and of itself felt empowering, and I had the opportunity to experiment with what I know to be the known choreography of the show and what I needed to do in order to make these students successful. People were counting on me to make a great final product, but I held myself to a standard that I was also proud of. I could tell the kids always enjoyed their time with me AND that they were learning new things. I am passionate about finding my students strengths and discovering where they thrive. This was the first time I got to apply that skill, and I think about my time with them almost everyday.

I became passionate about music in middle school, and choir became one of my first loves. I took every opportunity I could to be a leader in the choirs I was in, and this led me to study Music Education at Baldwin Wallace. The choir room became a safe space for me to explore my creativity, and I want to share that with my students. I specialize in educating and advocating for students as an overarching theme. I am particularly passionate about the idea of “artists as citizens.” I have tried throughout my time in arts education to lead with the idea that art is a tool to add to society in a unique way only you can. I have felt that a lot of arts programs do not give you the opportunity to explore other art mediums, and that is something I am very passionate about incorporating into my career. Blending art forms can create a new and interesting piece of work, or it can just make you a more well-rounded artist by understanding and appreciating the work of your colleagues.

My experience in multiple art forms has helped me become a more well-rounded educator and artist. For example, I have studied dance since I was 3 years old. Before I started learning music, rhythms and expressiveness were already in my body. I hear rhythms constantly bouncing around in my head when I listen to music, but it took until college for me to fully understand what I was hearing and how it was translated into notation. Then, once I got deeper into my education, I started to hear different layers of music. I am able to pick apart the bass line, the vocals, the instrumentation, etc. With this new skill, I can set myself apart as a choreographer, because I hear each layer of the music. I can set dancers to a part of the music that is not immediately at the forefront, and it can make a much more interesting work. Arts education has a tendency to separate every art form, and I would love to be an educator who shows the value of learning from other disciplines. Transferring skills from one class to another is fundamentally how I exist as an individual, and I would love to bring those ideas to my students. I will encourage students to find their specific interests, and to delve deeper into those passions.

I know that blending art forms and working in different disciplines have helped me in my time at BW. Last spring, I was working on a dance piece with a colleague of mine. They wrote a string piece with my specific choreographic style in mind, and then I was going to set dancers to it with live musicians on stage. I was truly trying to blur the lines between who is a mover and who is a musician. There were many questions I had to answer: How can I move a cellist around a stage? How can dancers move through the space without leaving the texture of string players? How can I make it look like the dancers are a part of the same space as string players? There was also an opportunity to experiment with bow movement, and you could twist and variate that on your dancers. This piece was never finished or performed, because of COVID, but it is an example of what I want to create in the future. Without my fundamental knowledge of string players, or my close relationship with a composer, I would not have been able to create anything like this. My experience in different art forms and my curiosity about ones that I do not focus on (composition) has given me new and interesting ideas to explore in the future.

The skills and attributes necessary to be an outstanding teacher are centralized around the idea of lifelong learning. As an educator, I have a passion for lifelong learning, and I believe teachers with a growth mindset make the most outstanding teachers in our field. Since generations of students are constantly changing, it is essential for an educator to be adaptable and perceptive to not only the needs of their community but also of individual students. Each year, a new set of students with unique personalities and skill sets enter your classroom, and it is your responsibility as an educator to learn how to best support these students.

Professional development plays an important role in my life as an educator, and I look forward to gaining more resources, lesson ideas, differentiation tools, and perspectives from my future colleagues as I transition into my professional career. Along with this idea, music education involves a large amount of collaboration that can enrich your professional lives and the lives of your students. The ability to collaborate with your colleagues can create new opportunities for your students. For example, a show choir most usually has a pit band accompanying them, and your relationship with an instrumental colleague in your district can define whether your students receive this exciting addition to their experience.

Ever since I was young, I have had the drive in me to create and to lead. That is what is fundamental to who I am, at my core. This has led to most decisions throughout my life, and it has helped me to prioritize what I need to do to reach my goals. If I am not creating or leading at one point in my life, I feel the void. I feel it deep within me, and then I take on a new project. Once this became one of my core values, my goal in life started to become a clearer picture, and my message of working through the idea of “artist as citizen” began to come to the forefront. I define success as feeling like the most honest and authentic version of yourself everyday, while still finding time to prioritize friends and family. I believe that my specific goals will lead me to this feeling, but if they do not, I will make sure to readjust. My goals align with my message, because I am passionate about creation, collaboration, and education.