Solo-performance artist, belonging strategist, and the accidental inventor of the world's first yoga drinking game.

I created The Uplift Center to teach people how to build belonging in any environment through human-centered live experiences.

It started in 2017 when I married my background in theater (BFA, NYU Tisch) with a decade of teaching yoga to create something that broke all the rules: Drunk Yoga®. What I discovered while I scaled this social wellness experience through worldwide events and teacher trainings was bigger than a yoga party. I'd stumbled onto a methodology for sparking belonging and engagement through play.

This became crystal clear when my team and I had to pivot Drunk Yoga® to virtual classes during COVID. At the start of the pandemic, it was tricky to encourage participants in team-building events to turn on their Zoom cameras. But, if they didn't turn them on, we couldn't do our jobs, fostering camaraderie through cheeky, interactive games: Lose your balance? Take a sip. Mix up your left and right? Say something you're grateful for. Spill on your neighbor's mat? Give them a compliment. Last person to put your cup on your head? Make up a dance move for everyone to do.

If we couldn't see people, we couldn't play. And without the games, people were simply sipping and stretching alone in their living rooms, and that wasn't the point.

So I did a deep dive. How do I get people to want to engage in something bigger than themselves? How do I make them want to turn on their cameras?

Through research and trial and error, all signs pointed to one thing: belonging.

I quickly learned that community is what we have (people in a room with something in common), engagement is what we want (members feeling accountable for their own experience), and belonging is the vehicle that gets us from one to the other. Play is the gas in the tank.

Once I saw this, I couldn’t unsee it, and in our modern world, stakes feel too high not to share what I learned. I want to live in a world where people dig into hard conversations instead of running from conflict, where we lead with curiosity instead of fear, and where we prioritize collectivism over individualism so that we may get over ourselves and compassionately engage with what matters—(ahem, each other and planet we live on).

This vision turned Drunk Yoga® into the P.L.A.Y. Method, which evolved into The Uplift Center, where my team and I help humans and those who lead them build sustainable belonging through live experiences and trainings.

When I'm not delivering talks or curating experiences, you can find me working on my one-woman shows (← that also tackle issues of belonging), hiking the Hudson Valley, doing yoga in Costa Rica, or geeking out on astrology.