I trained as a classical ballet dancer and was a professional dancer with the Royal New Zealand Ballet. That grounding in performance still shapes how I think - about discipline, about bodies, about what it means to communicate across difference.

I hold a PhD in Dance Studies from the University of Auckland, and my doctoral research took me to Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, where I built a research profile on dance, politics, and community that remains central to my work today, and I am one of just a few scholars worldwide specialising in dance in the MENA region.

I spent the next decade at the University of Auckland, and in 2020 I moved to Norway to join the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) as Associate Professor of Arts Education, becoming full Professor in 2021. I joined Nord University as Dean of the Faculty of Education, Arts, and Culture in 2023, a role where I lead roughly 350 staff and 3,500 students, and have spent three years defining the Faculty's identity, goals, and ambitions. In late 2025 I also took up a Professor II position at the University of Agder, Faculty of Fine Arts, and from January 2027 I take on a new role at Nord University as Professor with lead on international strategy.

My research sits at the intersection of arts, politics, interculturalism, and community. I've authored over 75 books, journal articles and book chapters, and I sit on the editorial boards of leading journals in dance and arts education. I've supervised over 50 master’s and PhD students and been invited to teach, examine, and speak in more than twenty countries, from Beijing to Beirut to Colombia.