I am a dance maker, performer, educator, and performance curator who cultivates environments and experiences through choreographic, design and social processes.  Since its founding in 2002, Scapegoat Garden has functioned as my primary vehicle for artistic and curatorial practice—a means to forge relationships between artists and communities, helping people see, create and contribute to a greater vision of ourselves, each other, and the places we call home.In 2022 I was awarded a Creative Capital grant, and a New Work New England grant from New England Foundation for the Arts. I have also been awarded artist Fellowships and grants by New England Foundation for the Arts (2014, 2017, 2022), Massachusetts Cultural Council (2016), Connecticut Office of the Arts (2005, 2013), the Greater Hartford Arts Council (2007), and the Surdna Foundation (2008), and have been honored for Distinguished Achievement in Dance by the Connecticut Dance Alliance (2012). Deborah is driven by an enduring commitment to world making, support of vibrant local dance ecologies, and the role of curatorial practice in those processes. This has manifested most notably in her founding of The Garden for Contemporary Dance (2011-2014), a incubator space for local dance makers to develop and share new work; and in her role as Dance Coordinator at Charter Oak Cultural Center (2011-2012), working closely with Hartford-area dance-makers to strengthen networks and establish shared resources within her local dance community through the formation of the Homegrown Dance initiative. Her most recent research grows out of her graduate study at the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance (ICPP) at Wesleyan University where she earned an MA in Performance Curation, and was awarded the 2019 ICPP Leadership Fellowship. This research emerges at the intersection of sustainable dance practice, locality, arts ecosystem formation, habits of perception, and black radical tradition(s). She is currently serving as lead author and consultant on the ICPP Performing Artist Case Study project, funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.Together these commitments inform her work with Scapegoat Garden, and her teaching at Hampshire College (Amherst, MA) where she serves as Associate Professor of Dance and Performance Curation, and as Visiting Associate Professor of Theater and Dance at Trinity College (AY 22-23).