* Northwestern University — Bachelor of Science degree in Perfomance
Studies and Honors Program in Creative Writing for the Media My professional life has been a mixture of extensive acting (theater, independent film and voice over work), writing (various genres), performance art (including work at New York City's The Knitting Factory), and singing work (including singing in the musical group in the finale at the United Nations birthday party in New York City). I have also worked as a certified massage therapist, professional public speaker with Citizens Against Crime, and ESL teacher in Japan (for two years at different times). I have traveled extensively throughout Japan, Thailand, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Macau, Nepal, Israel, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, India, Kenya, France, Switzerland, Holland, Monaco, England, Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador; and throughout the United States. This has been an incredible experience for me because I've lived in some of these countries. Sometimes I stayed with families, and have really seen how other people live, including grandparents living in a Borneo tree house who had tattoos all over their bodies and earlobes hanging down past their shoulders, and who were headhunters twenty years ago. (To my surprise, they acted like regular grandparents toward their grandson). I've talked with Hindu Holy men living in a cave at the holiest Hindu site in Nepal who, as bodies were being cremated beside the river outside, lifted 110 pounds of stone with their penises for visitors. I also had a forty-five minute private audience with the Dalai Lama. The subject matter of my arts varies widely – from completely wild, wacky and joyful fantasy (i.e., "One Day In The Life Of Unis, The Super Slender Tampon: an Adult Fairytale"); to stories about compulsive overeating, a mentally ill seven-year-old, a young woman overcoming verbal sexual abuse and other problems in her relationship with her mother; to womanhood, joy, and deep, strong, spiritual experiences. I use my arts to communicate about things I care about; and hope to move people from the depths of their beings, making them feel understood at a core level, and helping them to deeply understand other people and peoples. I want to be a bridge; to contribute to world peace through acting and writing by giving my audiences visceral empathetic responses to people they previously did not understand with plights and situations different from their own. Film is my favorite medium for this because it is financially and geographically accessible to most people, and has the power and freedom to move people deeply. I have studied creative writing with Edgar Award-winning writer, Stuart
Kaminski, won essay awards at Northwestern University, studied acting
and directing with Tony Award winner, Frank Galati and studied acting
intensively with Emmy Award winner, Joan Darling. I have done performances
of performance art pieces and poems I wrote, including one at a Columbia
University symposium-cultural event on From Bondage to Freedom –
Awakening the Human Spirit, for which I received a standing ovation. |