Why I Finally Started Writing About Dance

TL;DR
I started Choreo Theory as a space to reflect on two decades of dance, creation, and community. It isn't just about choreography. It's about the ideas, mistakes, and quiet revelations that shape who we become as artists. My hope is to share lessons that help the next generation of choreographers grow while keeping our stories alive. What began as a personal reflection slowly became a mirror for how art continues to teach us, even when we think we're the ones doing the teaching.

For most of my life, I’ve been a private person.

I was always comfortable thinking deeply but rarely saying those thoughts out loud. There’s a certain safety in silence, in processing quietly while the world keeps moving.

The Pull Toward Reflection

Lately, reflection keeps finding its way into everything I do. Maybe it’s this season of life. Maybe it’s time itself catching up. I’ve felt an urge to trace back the path that brought me here, nearly twenty years of teaching, performing, collaborating, failing, and beginning again.

There’s something humbling about looking backward while trying to move forward. You start to realize how every rehearsal, every imperfect project, every conversation that once felt small was part of a larger rhythm you couldn’t see at the time.

“Reflection isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about noticing what your past is still trying to teach you.”

When I sit with that idea, I notice how easily the past folds into the present. It’s not about dwelling on what could have been. It’s about understanding how the same lessons keep showing up in new costumes until we’re finally ready to listen.

The Seed That Took Its Time

Back in 2017, I taught at Unplugged, a dance retreat in the quiet woodland hills of Badger, California. The place felt suspended in time. Days moved slowly, framed by open skies and the soft hum of nature. It was the kind of setting that made reflection feel less like a choice and more like an instinct.

One evening, after class, a student stayed behind while everyone else drifted toward dinner. He said, “You should write a book one day. I’d totally read it.”

I laughed, certain he was just being kind. But the comment lingered. On the long drive home, winding through dark country roads, his words replayed in my mind. Something about that moment felt like a quiet beginning.

Looking back now, I realize that was the seed. It just needed time to root. For years, I kept teaching, creating, and learning, not realizing that the reflections gathering in my journals and conversations were slowly building toward something more.

Maybe that’s how most things start. Not with a big decision, but with a small, passing moment that waits patiently until you’re ready to do something about it.

“Art has a way of asking you to become the person capable of creating it.”

So Choreo Theory became the place where that seed finally sprouted. A space to gather the thoughts I’d been carrying for years, to explore what choreography keeps teaching me about creativity, leadership, and the ways art keeps reshaping who we are.

Why “Choreo Theory”?

The name is a small nod to color theory. In color theory, combinations create emotion, depth, and contrast. The same happens in choreography. When movement, story, and perspective meet, something new takes shape.

When you mix certain colors, you get shades that didn’t exist before. The same is true for ideas. When experience blends with curiosity, new dimensions of understanding appear. Dance becomes not just movement but language, a dialogue between what we feel and what we choose to express.

To me, Choreo Theory is the study of that dialogue. It’s how we connect intention with expression and how we discover that art can be both deeply personal and quietly communal.

Preserving and Pushing Forward

This blog isn’t a manifesto. It’s a living record, a kind of creative journal that preserves the lessons, contradictions, and small triumphs that make up the culture of dance.

My hope is that it becomes a place where dancers and choreographers see themselves, not as polished professionals with all the answers, but as artists in motion, constantly refining what we believe about art and about ourselves.

In teaching, I’ve noticed something simple but true. Dancers often think the goal is to perfect a phrase. In reality, the goal is to stay open long enough to let the phrase change you. That openness, that willingness to remain teachable, is what keeps the art alive.

“Every dancer eventually reaches a point where choreography becomes more than movement. It becomes reflection.”

That realization is what made me start writing. I didn’t want to build a platform. I wanted to build a mirror. A space to see the lineage behind the work, to connect with others who carry the same questions, and to make sure those stories don’t get lost between generations.

The Quiet Side of Growth

When people talk about growth, they often picture forward motion, expansion, and achievement. But I’ve learned that growth sometimes looks like stillness. It’s the pause after a performance, the silence between projects, the small inhale before a new creation begins.

I used to mistake that pause for a lack of progress. Now I see it as necessary. That quiet space is where ideas settle, where perspective matures, and where creativity catches its breath.

Stillness doesn’t mean stagnation. It means you’re giving yourself time to notice what’s unfolding, to recognize that not every lesson needs a stage. Some simply need attention.

The Human Thread

At its core, Choreo Theory isn’t about technique or artistic theory. It’s about people. The ones who build communities, shape creative spaces, and pass on stories through movement.

Dance has always been a kind of language for me. A way to say what I couldn’t articulate in words. Over time, I realized that behind every combo, there’s a question being asked. Behind every rehearsal, there’s a relationship being formed.

That’s what I want to capture here, the human side of creation. The small truths that guide us through the inevitable cycles of inspiration, frustration, and rediscovery.

And maybe, by sharing those reflections, others will feel a little less alone in their process.

Closing Thoughts

So here it is, my first entry. A beginning in its own right. I don’t know exactly where Choreo Theory will lead, and that uncertainty feels right. Most worthwhile creations begin that way, with curiosity rather than certainty.

If you’re reading this and feel something stir, an echo of your own journey, then maybe that’s the point.

Because choreography, at its best, isn’t just about shaping movement. It’s about shaping meaning.