I like to interact with the natural environment, people of all cultures, ages and abilities and a sense of magic or mystery. I work in many different art forms, in environmental education and with ceremony. Since childhood I have been passionate about these endeavors and have studied, practiced and developed my skills and sensitivities in them to be of greater service to both local communities and the world at large.

I began studying dance in India as a child and have since studied and performed in many styles, including modern dance, contact improv, African, creative and ritual movement, performance art and, last but not least, stilt dancing. I have also worked with visual arts, especially mask making, parade arts and giant puppets. Also, over the last 10 years of travel and work in many beautiful and intriguing places, I have been catching nature’s, community’s and relationships beauty through photographs and writing.

I have participated, co-created and led many different kinds of ritual, particularly seasonal celebrations and meaningful personal rituals for honoring birthdays, life changes, and memorials. I bring creativity, an inclusive sense of spirituality and a balance of playfulness and seriousness to these ceremonies. I embrace both tradition and innovation in this work and open the way for people to access their feelings and tap into a sense of their higher potential. 

For ten years, my primary focus was working on a unique elephant dance and theater piece. I choreographed and synthesized movements based on elephants’ amazing social behaviors and physical actions with original live music to create a piece called “Elephants and the Seven Sacred Directions.” This piece combined cultural, economic and scientific information about elephants with advocacy for this species’ survival and protection. I presented elephants’ endangered species plight as a powerful emblematic symbol of what is disharmonious and threatening in our world and offered paths for healing the world through aspects of this narrated dance. I performed this piece locally, nationally and internationally. It left audiences deeply touched and motivated to take action and received great critical acclaim from luminaries such as Jane Goodall, Joanna Macy and Marc Bekoff.

I have continued to work at the crossroads between nature, people and art. I also have workshopped these subjects with students of all ages, abilities and economic backgrounds. One such project involved designed special signage for trees with both Harvard University students and rural Athol high school students. 

These tree signs reflected the students’ growing love of the trees and their learning about the tree’s vast ecosystem services. They were mounted at Harvard Forest and in the town of Athol. 

Similarly, I worked with inner city youth in many projects involving ecology and identity. One such example was making masks was with youth in a locked facility for a month. Another interesting project was making masks and site-specific larger-than-life “litter critters,” as part of Outward Bound’s Boston Harbor cleanup program.* They were quite a sight to behold from the mooring dock and allowed the public to get excited about the results of our program. In the same vein, I have done much recreational and artistic with all kinds of people with a range of disabilities from sight impairment to paraplegics. This work has been extremely rewarding on a heart and soul level as I have seen the participants growing from their participation. One of my favorite activities here was to engage participants in creating outdoor mandalas made of natural objects. Then we all enjoyed hearing them speak about how their natural object represented their struggles and strengths. 

My current work focuses on these three main branches: stilt dancing in two companies, mask-making, and semi-improvisational solo and collaborative performances. I also am doing more writing, photography, and writing. Please open the website pages to see further photos and descriptions.

Thank you!

Maya

*more pages, photos and videos coming soon as this site is under construction