I was born in South Korea and adopted as a baby by an American woman who worked for the US embassy. I also have an older adopted sister from Taiwan. I grew up in South Korea, Nepal, Liberia, and the US. As an adult, I have lived in Peru, India, and South Korea in addition to my home base here in the San Francisco Bay Area. I graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Pomona College with a BA in Indian history.
After college, I realized that I had more book learning than life wisdom and set off on a healing journey working on farms in Europe, Borneo, and Ladakh and then studying yoga, meditation, reiki and music for 2 years. After that, I was a community organizer and activist working on living wage campaigns in the US. This work satisfied my deep hunger for social justice and also gave me clarity that rage was fueling my work. I realized that I needed to heal to some of my own wounds around adoption, gender, sexuality and race in addition to trying to transform social institutions and systems that create this wounding. Fortunately, I found music, art and healing practices that helped transform pain into beauty.
I have performed solo and collaboratively as a musician and theater/performance artist at the San Francisco International Arts Festival, Chuncheon Mime Festival, Queer Arts Festival, Empowering Women of Color Conference, Queer and Asian Conference, Wanderlust, Yoga Journal Conference, and more. I also am a filmmaker and have screened at the Austin Gay & Lesbian Film Festival and SF International Women’s Festival.
These days, I am passionate about art as activism and a tool for personal and social change. I volunteered as a teen and family retreat counselor at Spirit Rock Meditation Center facilitating mindfulness workshops for years and also have worked with the adoption community as a counselor. I love combining expressive practices and mindfulness in my work. My mission is for all of us to speak our truths in harmony with each other. As a genderqueer, non-binary Asian American performer and teacher, I am committed to transmitting the love frequency to create a world of justice and peace.
In 2011, I launched the Free Your Voice, Free Your Harmony, Free Your Chakras, and Free Your Voice while Drumming series that helps people sing, sound, and speak their truths with more confidence and freedom. I share all the resources that have helped me on my own journey of empowerment and watch people bloom!
Since 2013, I have been co-facilitating The Art of Solidarity 5-day training with Juli Rees that helps people examine racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism and other issues through expressive arts and drama. This diversity training creates a space for deep sharing and listening through embodied arts practices and fosters feelings of connection and solidarity. We have shorter workshop options as well.
Armand Volkas, who started the Living Arts Counseling Center in Emeryville, and I also co-facilitate Adoption Stories: Healing the Primal Wound for adult adoptees that uses drama therapy and expressive arts.
In 2018, Aryeh Shell and I launched Collective Emergence: Embodying the Future We Want Now, an innovative diversity & solidarity training program that explores our ancestors, the earth, deep time, power/privilege, solidarity, collective creation and visioning and liberation to help us create a world of hope, peace, and justice through somatic and arts practices. We also piloted Diverse Legacies Ancestral Healing and are excited to be alive in this great turning and help people heal ancestral stories and create the legacy they want to leave the world.