The story
I started dancing when I was 2 years old. By 22, I had earned my BFA in Dance, spent over a decade teaching, and built my entire identity around movement. Dance wasn't just what I did. It was how I understood myself.
Then, in March 2020, everything changed. I woke up one day unable to stand. I was diagnosed with severe POTS, and within weeks, what I had spent my entire life building, my dream of eventually making it to a Broadway stage, was gone.
For the next few years, I did everything I could to get it back. I read every study, tried countless protocols, and immersed myself in brain retraining and nervous system regulation programs that promised if I changed my thoughts, my body would follow. When they didn't work, I believed I was doing something wrong.
Eventually, I realized that my desperate search for a cure had become part of the cycle. The more I tried to make my symptoms disappear, the louder they became.
When I stopped trying to fix them and met them with curiosity instead of fear... they gradually began to quiet, giving me back a quality of life I never thought I'd have again.
Only then was I ready to rebuild my relationship with dance in a way that honored the body I had, not the one I was trying to get back. Drawing from my training in Bartenieff fundamentals, somatic movement, and my own experience navigating chronic illness, I created Soma Dance Method, a practice designed to help others feel seen, supported, and reconnect with joy in their bodies.