Why Women Warriors

I was born and raised in Northern California, where I got my BA in Dramatic Arts. Then, I studied classical acting in London, where I got my first certification in stage combat and continued training on returning to California. When I came to Denmark to study physical theater technique, I began to teach stuntpersons in weapons technique for stage and film, which has become my area of expertise. Since the 1990’s, I have been devising and performing action shows (with and without horses), choreographing fight scenes, teaching movement, acting, voicework, maskwork, stage fighting (with and without weapons) and historical riding with weaponry. My specialty is edutainment: Historically based shows, plays, demonstrations and events for museums, cultural organizations and schools. Now, my mission is shedding light on women warriors.

“To bring women warriors of the past back into the history books, to recreate balance in the world”.

My passion for women warriors and huntresses from the past sprang from my experience working with the War Museum of Copenhagen. In the beginning of my work there, many people commented on how unusual it was to see a woman fighting and even got some angry comments when I played a man. I had not seen it as a problem, being a female fighter, until I came to Denmark. Once there, I found that I had to prove I was good enough to work with men, by showing off my skills before I got down to training and choreographing, especially male students. I was the first female stage fighter to work in Scandinavia, so it was unusual. 

In 1995, I was fired for being a woman, because it wasn’t thought to be historically correct. I was devastated. Yet, the experience brought beneficial results anyway. Fortunately, not performing at the museum was short-lived and I have done many shows and demonstrations there since the end of the 1990’s, and I made a point in making sure that people understood that I knew I was a woman playing a man through quips and jokes. I even chose to do shows that included women fighters. The museum had changed its policy by then. Moreover, the experience spurred me on to research female fighters from the past, in order to burst the historically correctness myth. This website is the fruit of my journey.