Danielle’s experiences in teaching, performing, and writing connect through their use of humor, physicality, and interactivity. They love all of these manifestations of storytelling for how they connect them to all the souls in a room, to all the souls in the world.

A toast! To discovery, to wonder, to truth.

Performing

Danielle is a clown, physical theater performer, singer, and actor; their performance work is a reflection of their family's traditions, culture, diaspora, and sense of humor.

In 2023, Danielle was commissioned to write War and Play, a clown show about the war in Ukraine at the Lincoln Center through the Criminal Queerness Festival. They devised and performed this show alongside a splendid team of physical theatermakers. It was recently performed as the opening show of the inaugural PhysFestNYC and will be going up again as part of Philly’s Cannonball Fringe Festival.

Danielle also produced, co-devised, wrote, and performed in The Crone Chronicles, a physical theatre play that immerses the audience in the world of Baba Yaga's story through minimal set design and dynamic physicality, drawing heavily from the teachings of Jacques LeCoq. The play also showcases the power of clowning and mask work in creating an immersive experience that challenges stereotypical portrayals of characters.

She has produced and hosted recurring vaudeville-style variety shows, to showcase the talent of local performers. Danielle has collaborated with institutions like Philly Clown Slam (Philadelphia), The Open Kitchen Sculpture Garden (Philadelphia), National Queer Theater (NYC), Diversionary Theatre (San Diego), The Conspirators (Chicago), Silent Theatre Company (Chicago), Prop Thtr (Chicago), Runaways Lab Theatre (Chicago), Alliance for Jewish Theatre (worldwide), and more.

Teaching & Community

Danielle also teaches workshops in person and online on clown practice and performance, Jewish clown history, and their original creation, The Fool's Yoga, a movement class that blends vinyasa yoga, meditation, and clown exercises/games.

Danielle has also developed coursework around Clown and Traditions in Judaism, which explores clown in Jewish tradition, the spiritual symbol of the Fool, the role of ritualism in clowning, and what clowning looks like for Jewish people in the 21st century.

Danielle created and hosted The Holy Fool Day Retreat in April 2023. The day included workshops on Fool’s Yoga, introductory clowning practice, miming, and the art of mask. Participants also enjoyed curated clown ritual meals, tarot readings, accordion tunes, and other foolish activities.

To foster a remote clown learning community during the pandemic, she hosted a weekly Clown Watch Party and created a community-sourced comprehensive clown watch list.

Danielle received her clown teaching certification through The Clown School in Los Angeles and received her 200-hour Yoga Alliance Vinyasa Flow certification through the Lab Yoga Studio in Chicago. She has additional clown training from teachers from Cirque de Soleil and Theater Unspeakable, as well as individuals like Avner Eisenberg, Aretha Sills, Antonio Fava, Eric Davis, and more. 

Writing

Danielle has experience as an arts and culture journalist, poet, and stage writer. Their work across genres examines themes of diaspora, tradition, and identity.

As a playwright, Danielle writes both scripted, devised, and partially improvised pieces for the stage. Danielle's ensemble collaborations investigate current events and history through a theatrical lens, such as War and Play, a queer clown show about Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine, and The Crone Chronicles, a physical theatre play investigating the story of the Slavic crone witch Baba Yaga. Her theater writing has also been published in TripWire Harlot's Theater Artists Making Theatre With No Theater and The Braid's Yearning to Breathe Free.

As an essayist and journalist, Danielle has contributed coverage of community news, lifestyle editorials, and arts/culture events to various publications, such as Newcity Magazine, Pittsburgh City Paper, Thrillist, MentalFloss, and more. Danielle also served as the Theater Editor for Scapi Magazine, managing coverage of Chicago's DIY art scene. There they pioneered "Expressions," a form of creative responses to each show that was reviewed. Danielle also worked on a fellowship where she published "Identity Diaspora", a collection of lyric, nonfiction essays exploring facets of her Jewish, Soviet, and immigrant background.

As a poet, their work has been published in Collide Literary Magazine, Sand Hills Literary Magazine, Sappho's Salon, Poetry for Ukraine, Silence is Different Now, Quarantimes, and LOCUS: IV. Check out their poetry instagram to read more of their work.