I grew up in my mom’s dance studio studying creative movement, ballet and jazz.  I learned both the social and the technical skills to teach children, teens and adults. My mom was passionate about students of all ages finding their inner creative voice and encouraged us to be dance-artists and dance-makers. In the first 12 years of my movement career, I specialized in children’s dance and creative movement. Once I left home at 18, I found contemporary dance, improvisation and somatics.  Barefoot dancing in layered clothes was for me.

Over the years I have taught and designed curriculum for collegiate, vocational and studio programs for fitness professionals, yoga teachers and dance educators. Some of these include adjunt faculty for the University of Montana and Metro State University and online and lab instructor for LifeTime Academy. I have worked as a 1:1 practitioner since 2008 helping people repair from injury and under-recovery, improve general function and high-level performance.  Creative dance and movement projects that I have been a part of include La Caravana Por La Paz (USA, Venezuela, Brazil), Headwaters Dance Company (Missoula, Montana), Open Field Artists (Missoula, Montana),  Daughter Cells Dance (Denver/Boulder, CO) and Soul Tribe Adventures (Mexico, Costa Rica).

In 2005 I earned a BFA in Dance and Choreography (took me nearly 8 years and along the way I had 2 kids) and in 2014 I received a MS in Rehabilitative Science (won a scholarship – the National Academy of Sports Medicine Pursuit of Excellence Award).  My collegiate studies were focused on developmental movement, dance kinesiology, somatic repatterning, stress reduction, injury prevention, periodization and exercise science.  I am currently a NASM Certified Personal Trainer, Corrective Exercise + Performance Enhancement Specialist (since 2009) and an ISMETA Registered Somatic Movement Educator (since 2019).

More essentially, I am remembering how to be a human being in relationality with all things. I am a daughter, mother, sister, spouse and auntie. I identify as queer, cisgender and white-bodied with German, Irish, Scottish and English ancestry. My last name is Hawaiian and is gifted through my wife and her lineage. For the past five years I have lived on Shoshone/ Bannock territory, Turtle Island in Boise, Idaho, USA.

I follow a calling to help people move and feel better. With my own history of SI joint dysfunction and low back pain, memory loss from early developmental trauma, and following a path of both personal and collective healing, I find myself advocating for a movement movement. I teach movement as a way to participate with changing times.