Bio

Born, Chicago, Illinois, 1985
Early Memory: spinning on wood floor, falling, splitting chin open
Recent Memory: Sliding into easy falls on wood floor, dancing contact at Earthdance
Grew up in Decorah, Iowa
Lived in Minnesota, Arizona, Mexico City, and now Massachusetts
Dream: Moving rhythms in committed dance and music group

Artist Statement

MF is an ongoing, evolving exploration in my life as dancer, gardener, musician, cook, artist, and early childhood teaching assistant. Most of what I’ve been drawn to doing for a living involves “learning by doing” in a kinesthetic way. Gardening and cooking especially require endurance. MF has given me tools to maintain health, curiosity, and enjoyment through repetitive processes, and reflect on and shift rhythms of life for the sake of healing. MF has honed an inner lens to experience life more fully through movement. MF supports all of my dance and movement expression, including Contact Improvisation, modern dance, qi-gong, folk dancing, yoga, martial arts, a variety of cultural dance forms, and more. I’ve learned to dance with a listening, internal spirit that has helped me minimize injuries and find ease in the unfamiliar. MF has encouraged willingness to try new things, learn through perceived failures and successes, and enjoy the gifts, challenges, and mysteries of my living human body!

In Movement Fundamentals II: Practices of Range & Efficiency, I learned about Bartinieff Fundamentals, and the basic patterns which underly all human movement. In order to walk, humans learn basic patterns such as breath and cross lateral movement. Through observing these movement patterns in myself and others, I have opened to a fuller range of life expression. What previously seemed “impossible” to me, now seems to be a simpler matter of breaking down the patterns and steps that lead to a seemingly complex movement (whether in dance or life!). What makes me feel most alive is the thrill remembering that all of life is an improvisation, and exercising that moment to moment awareness through the vital gifts of music and movement, in connection with others. This ongoing process continues to serve and affirm improvising in life with gratitude to be!

Contact

Email: blaika02@luther.edu
Phone: 563-419-4536