programs

faculty bios for fall 2005 faculty:
(scroll down for bios of recent past faculty)

Jen Abrams has studied Contact Improvisation for 11 years, beginning at Oberlin College, the birthplace of the form. She relocated to NYC from Chicago, where she performed with the contact improv-based company she co-founded, Limbic Fix. An active member of the WOW Café Theater collective, she has also performed her work at the Theater for the New City, La Mama ETC, Dixon Place, Raw Space, St. Mark’s Poetry Project and with The Exhibitionists, a visual art collective. Jen is also a classically trained actor; her roots in theater and immersion in literature inform her dances.

Michelle Boulé, a member of Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People and Donna Uchizono Company, has also worked with Beth Gill, Doug Varone and Judith Sánchez-Ruíz, among others. She has taught at MR, DNA, the Trisha Brown Studio, George Washington University and the Hong Kong Performing Arts Academy. This fall she is choreographing/teaching at the University of Illinois. She was a ‘02 DanceWEB scholarship recipient in Vienna.

Janis Brenner is an award-winning dancer/choreographer/singer/teacher and Artistic Director of JANIS BRENNER & DANCERS in NYC. She has toured in 28 countries and is recognized as a "singular performer" with a multifaceted artistic range. She has sung with Meredith Monk and Vocal Ensemble since ’90, receiving a '97 "Bessie" for Outstanding Creative Achievement in Monk's The Politics of Quiet. Brenner's work has been commissioned/restaged on more than 35 companies/colleges throughout the US, Europe and Asia.

Jeanine Durning has been dancing/making dances in NYC since the early ‘90s. Her choreography has been presented at DTW, Danspace Project, Jacob's Pillow Festival's Inside/Out series at Central Park SummerStage, across the US and in England, and has been commissioned by dance artists, universities and repertory companies, most recently Fan Club Dance (England) and Zenon Dance Company (MN). The New York Times deemed half URGE, (DTW, ’03) one of the year’s top ten dance events. Jeanine has worked with many choreographers including Susan Rethorst and Richard Seigal, was a member of David Dorfman Dance (’93-’02), and has been a guest teacher at Texas Woman's University, Rutgers University, UMBC, DNA and MR. Her latest project, out of the kennel into a home, will premiere at DTW in fall ‘05.

Doug Elkins began his career in dance as a B-Boy, before graduating from SUNY-Purchase. He is a “Bessie” Award winner and the recipient of significant choreographic commissions and awards. Doug has taught and performed throughout N. America, the UK, Europe, Asia and Brazil, and has created original work for numerous dance companies. He has been the artistic director of Doug Elkins Dance Company since ‘88.

Daria Faïn is a French-born dancer/choreographer. She is a certified Chi Gong teacher from Mantak Chia's Universal Healing Tao, has studied/practiced for 7 years with Dr. Jan in Paris at the Quimetao, and is a certified Alexander Technique™ teacher. She regularly performs and teaches throughout Europe, conducting dance and movement workshops at schools of dance and architecture there as well as in the US at Tulane University, Cooper Union, Bucknell University, NYU, Adelphi University and Rutgers. Her choreography has been seen in NYC at The Kitchen, MR at the Judson Church, Dixon Place and the 92nd Street Y, among others.

Jordan Fuchs has been practicing Contact Improvisation since ‘89 and making dances since ‘91. His teaching is informed by his training in capoeira and ongoing investigations into the borders between choreography and improvisation. Danspace Project will present his company this October. In NYC he has performed with K.J. Holmes and Kirstie Simson, among others. He is an adjunct lecturer at Hunter College and recently taught at the Festival Internacional DANZ'AQUÃ in Puerto Rico.

K.J. Holmes is a dancer/singer/poet and body worker who has been exploring improvisation as process and performance since ‘81. She teaches and performs throughout the world and has collaborated with Lisa Nelson, Karen Nelson, Steve Paxton, Simone Forti, Shelley Senter, Sondra Loring and Julie Carr, among others. K.J. is a graduate of the School for Body-Mind Centering®, is adjunct faculty at NYU’s Experimental Theatre Wing and continues to teach in NYC through MR, where she was a ’92-’93 A.I.R., and at the Trisha Brown Studios.

Barbara Mahler has been teaching daily classes for 25 years, has been on the faculty of the Susan Klein School of Dance since ‘79, and is currently teaching at Hunter College and other NYC studios. Mahler dances, teaches and makes dances keeping in mind the power of movement, space and gravity as abstract formal elements of choreography; her approach is rigorously contemporary. She has worked with many noted choreographers, but primarily pursues her own choreographic vision. A teacher and performer of international repute, her work has been seen worldwide. She was guest artist at the Yard, adjudicated by Patricia Nanon, a recipient of a Sage Cowls Land Grant at the University of Minnesota and a ’01-’02 MR A.I.R.

Juliette Mapp danced with John Jasperse Company from '96-‘03, and received a ’02 "Bessie" Award for her work with the company. She has performed and taught throughout Europe, Asia, South America and the US. She also works with Vicky Shick and has presented her own solo work throughout NYC. Juliette graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in '93 and has been a student of Alexander Technique™ for over 10 years. She has been an assistant to Mr. Jasperse, most recently in creating an original work for Ballet Lyon in France. Juliette was a ’04-’05 MR A.I.R.

Yvonne Meier was born in Zurich, Switzerland. Since arriving in NYC in ‘79 she has shown her work at The Kitchen, Danspace Project, PS 122, PS 1 and Etc. among others. She has received funding from NEA, NYFA, Franklin Furnace and Etc., and won a “Bessie” Award for her piece, The Shining. She also teaches release technique, Authentic Movement and scores. Her work Mad Heidi, Part I and Limpopo, I and II was presented by Danspace Project in Spring ‘05. Her new work will premiere at The Kitchen in March ‘06. Yvonne was a ’04-’05 MR A.I.R.

Charles Mosey is based in NYC and has been learning and teaching Contact Improvisation for 15 years. He has had the opportunity to perform with Simone Forti, Daniel Lepkoff, K.J. Holmes, Kirstie Simpson and Wendy Blum.

Jeremy Nelson performed with the Stephen Petronio Dance Company (‘84-’92), in the work of David Zambrano, Susan Rethorst, Luis Lara Malvacías, and in his own work, and has worked with contact improviser Kirstie Simpson. He received a ’91 “Bessie” Award and a ‘04 Guggenheim Fellowship for choreography. For the past 18 years, he has been teaching classes/workshops at venues including ADF, ImPulsTanz, Vienna, P.A.R.T.S. School, Brussels and Sasha Waltz Company, Berlin, among others, and currently teaches at MR and at Connecticut College. His choreography has been presented internationally and in NYC at Danspace Project, DTW and PS 122. Years of study with Barbara Mahler and Susan Klein, and more recent studies in Alexander Technique™ and Body-Mind Centering® strongly influence his teaching.

Tere O'Connor has been making dances since ’82, creating over 30 works for his company and numerous commissioned works for dance companies around the world. He is a ‘93 Guggenheim Fellow, and has received two “Bessie” Awards, one for Heaven Up North in ’88, and one for Sustained Achievement in ’99, citing Hi Everybody. He has received numerous grants including from the NEA, NYSCA, NYFA, Rockefeller MAP, Jerome Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, Harkness Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Arts International, Philip Morris, Inc, and Altria Group, Inc. He recently completed a solo, Indoor Man, for Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Susan Rethorst has created dances since ‘75, recently becoming more involved in lecturing and writing about dance. Since ‘95, she has divided her time between NYC and Amsterdam, teaching and making work throughout Europe and the US. She was a ‘85 “Bessie” Award recipient, has received numerous commissions from the Jerome Foundation, and awards from the NEA, NYSCA, Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, NYFA, Mertz Gilmore Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation.

Vicky Shick, an independent dancer and choreographer, has been involved in the NYC dance community since the late ‘70s. A member of the Trisha Brown Company for six years, she has also worked with many other NY-based choreographers. She received a “Bessie” Award for performance (’85) and for choreography (’03), has shown her own work since the mid-‘80s and teaches regularly in the US and Europe.

Shakti Andrea Smith is a dancer and bodyworker who practices and teaches in New York City and New England. She teaches Contact Improvisation, Authentic Movement, Dance Meditations and Yoga. Other influences include ritual, being in nature, and pathways to being more fully alive and present in this moment. Shakti has a degree in Transpersonal Psychology, over ten years experience teaching Contact, and a passion for site-specific outdoor performance work. www.dancingwithshakti.com

RoseAnne Spradlin’s choreographic work has been described by critics as “raw and compelling.” She won a ‘03 “Bessie” Award for her trio under/world, and has been the recipient of support from NYSCA, NYFA, Rockefeller MAP, Jerome Foundation and other funders. She worked closely with Body-Mind Centering® founder Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen from ‘86-‘01. From ‘01-‘05 she trained in Oriental Medicine and is now a licensed acupuncturist. She continues to teach BMC® work and to make choreography.

faculty bios for recent past faculty:

Chris Aiken is a leading international teacher and performer in the field of dance improvisation and Contact Improvisation. His movement experience includes dance, theater, Contact Improvisation, compositional improvisation, Alexander Technique™, yoga, release techniques and athletic training. Chris has performed and collaborated with many renowned dance artists including Steve Paxton, Kirstie Simson, Nancy Stark Smith, Peter Bingham, Andrew Harwood and Angie Hauser. He has been presented the Walker Art Center, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, DTW and Bates Dance Festival, among others.

Wally Cardona has toured extensively as a solo performer and teacher. He has created seven works for the Wally Cardona Quartet, founded in ’97, leading to new works for BAM’s Next Wave Festival and PICA’s TBA Festival. A member of the Ralph Lemon Company (‘87-’95), he has also appeared in Deborah Hay’s The Match, Hervé Robbe’s V.O. U.S., and Jochen Ulrich’s Get Up Early. Cardona teaches workshops in technique, improvisation, repertory and composition throughout the world.

Ann Carlson is an award-winning choreographer and performer, whose work is a blend of dance, voice, text, music and visual elements. Ms. Carlson's work has been seen in galleries, theaters, museums, on frozen ponds, mountainsides, along train tracks and in city streets throughout the US, and in Mexico and Russia. She has conducted workshops in universities, colleges and festivals for 15 years.

Ray Chung is a performer, teacher, engineer and artist who has worked with Contact Improvisation and improvisation since ‘79. He uses Contact Improvisation as part of his improvisational performance practice and integrates other movement forms into his work, including martial arts, bodywork and Authentic Movement. He regularly collaborates with dancers, musicians and other artists.

Abby Crain is a performer, improviser and sometimes dance maker who currently performs nationally and internationally with David Dorfman Dance, as well as with Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People. Her work is deeply influenced by her 11-year study of Contact Improvisation and other improvisational forms. Her teaching and dancing has also been inspired by the work of Sara Shelton Mann, with whom she has performed and continues to study.

David Dorfman has received fellowships from the NEA, NYFA, an American Choreographer’s Award, and the first annual Paul Taylor Fellowship from the Yard. He won a ‘96 “Bessie” Award for his community-based project, Familiar Movements (The Family Project.) Dorfman’s choreography has been commissioned widely and produced at venues ranging from the BAM Next Wave Festival to The Joyce Theater, The Kitchen, DTW, Danspace Project/St. Mark's Church, P.S. 122 and Dancing in the Streets. His company, David Dorfman Dance, formed in ‘85, has performed extensively in North and South America, Great Britain and Europe.

DD Dorvillier, a certified Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT) teacher since ‘95, teaches SRT, improvisation and composition worldwide. A dance/ performance artist, she has created experimental/ multi-media performance works since ’89, has been a MR A.I.R. and co-editor of MRPJ’s Release issue, and since ‘95 has curated the improvisational performance series Hothouse at PS 122. She received a ‘00 NYFA Choreography Fellowship, and in ‘03, along with composer David Kean, received two “Bessie” Awards for Dressed for Floating.

Irene Dowd is on the dance faculty of the Juilliard School and Canada National Ballet School. Author of Taking Root to Fly, she has maintained her own studio and private practice for over 30 years in NYC. Irene choreographs for Peggy Baker, Margie Gillis and other solo dancers. Spirals has been taught in schools and dance companies across the US and Canada.

Katie Duck, a dancer/choreographer/composer/teacher, is currently touring solo work, teaching workshops and performing collaborative projects with her Magpie Music Dance Company. Originally from the US, she left in ’76 to move to Amsterdam, and then to Italy in ‘79 where she formed the company GROUPO, touring throughout Europe. She was senior lecturer at Dartington College of Arts in the theatre department and led the choreography course, and currently teaches composition, improvisation and technique at AHK Dance Department, Amsterdam.

Frey Faust was initiated into Contact Improvisation by Nita Little at the age of 14. Invited to Paris by Marcel Marceau, he studied at his Ecole de Mimodrame. In NYC, he worked with David Parsons, Donald Byrd, Meredith Monk and Merce Cunningham. Frey developed and teaches worldwide the Axis Syllabus, a didactical synthesis of movement principles and supporting information.

Ori Flomin, originally from Israel, has performed/toured internationally with the Stephen Petronio Company (‘91-’99), and reconstructed Petronio's work on several companies. He has also danced in the works of Neil Greenberg, Molissa Fenley, Tim Feldman, Susan Braham and Michael Clark, among others. His own work has been seen at DTW's Split Stream and Fresh Tracks, PS 122’s New Stuff, Galapagos and in Salzburg, Austria. He teaches dance throughout the US and Europe as well as at Dance Space Center and MR, NYC. Ori is a ’04-’05 MR A.I.R.

Simone Forti's roots are in improvisation, which she studied with Anna Halprin in the ‘50s, and in the New York Judson Dance Theater era of dialogue between visual artists, musicians, poets and dancers. Over the past 20 years she has been combining movement and language in a form she calls Logomotion. She currently is exploring writing and improvisation as forms that feed each other. Last year, Beyond Baroque Press published her book Oh Tongue, a collection of experimental writings that include transcripts of language spoken improvisationally in performance.

John K. Glenn has been investigating improvisation and performance since ’87, with training in modern and release techniques, Contact Improvisation, Alexander Technique™ and tap dance. He danced with Paula Josa-Jones/ Performance Works (‘90-’96), performing at the Joyce Theater’s Altogether Different Festival, Jacob's Pillow, Dance Umbrella (London, Boston), and Bates Dance Festival. He previously taught at the Center for Creative Youth, Wesleyan University, and has taught for MR since ‘02.

Levi Gonzalez is a member of Donna Uchizono Company and currently also works with Michael Laub's Remote Control Productions in Europe. Other choreographers he has worked with include ChameckiLerner, John Jasperse, Jeremy Nelson and Dennis O'Connor. His frequent choreographic collaborations with Luciana Achugar have been presented by DTW, the Kitchen, Movement Research and Dixon Place.

Neil Greenberg has been making dances since ‘79, receiving fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, NEA, NYFA & the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts and a “Bessie” Award for the choreography of Not-About-AIDS-Dance. He has created two commissions for Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project. A former dancer with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (‘79-86), he has been on the dance faculty of Purchase College since ‘87. He served as Dance Curator at The Kitchen from ‘95-99. His technique classes are influenced by his studies of Klein Technique with Barbara Mahler, Alexander Technique™ with June Ekman, and Body-Mind Centering® with RoseAnne Spradlin. He is currently working on a new multimedia project, Partial View, which will presented at DTW in April '05. For more information, www.neilgreenberg.org

Miguel Gutierrez is a dance artist based in Brooklyn and artistic director of Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People. He has been presented at The Kitchen, P.S. 122, Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church, throughout the East Coast, in St. Petersburg, Russia and alongside the band Le Tigre. He irregularly performs an improvisation-based duo entitled Sabotage with composer/musician Jaime Fennelly. He has been in residence as a choreographer at the Ensemble Studio Theater's Lexington Center for the Arts, George Washington University, Goucher College, Hollins University, University of Iowa and Dance Space Center, and created a commissioned work on Pittsburgh's Labco Dance in '04. He has received support from Arts International's The Fund for U.S. Artists at International Festivals and Exhibitions and the Suitcase Fund, as well as a '04 NYFA Fellowship in choreography. He is the recipient of a '02 "Bessie" Award for his work with John Jasperse Company. He teaches internationally on a regular basis, and was a '01-03 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence.

Andrew de Lotbinière Harwood, artistic director of AH HA Productions, a project-oriented Montreal-based company, has been creating dances, improvising, teaching and performing at home and abroad for 30 years. His works has been presented in numerous international festivals since ‘80. He has danced with the companies of Marie Chouinard and Jean-Pierre Perreault and has performed with Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith, Peter Bingham, Chris Aiken, Kirstie Simson, Marc Boivin, Julyen Hamilton, Benoît Lachambre and many others.

Ishmael Houston-Jones' improvised dance and language work has been performed in NYC, across the US, in Europe and in Latin America. He has taught many movement and dance improvisation workshops, notably at the EDDC in the Netherlands, American Dance Festival, and at the San Francisco Festival of Improvisation. In ’90, he and writer Dennis Cooper presented The Undead at the L.A. Festival of the Arts. In ‘89 he collaborated with filmmaker Julie Dash on the video Relatives, which was aired nationally on the PBS series Alive TV. Houston-Jones and Fred Holland shared a "Bessie Award” for their Cowboys, Dreams and Ladders. Currently he is part of Unsafe Unsuited, an ongoing improvised trio with Keith Hennessy and Patrick Scully. Houston-Jones' essays and fiction have appeared in the Movement Research Performance Journal, Contact Quarterly, FARM and Mirage.

John Jasperse has been Artistic Director/Choreographer of John Jasperse Company since ’85, showing his work in the US, Brazil, Chile, Israel, Japan and throughout Europe. He and his company have received numerous prizes, grants and fellowships, including NEFA's NDP, Rockefeller Foundation, NEA, NYFA, Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, Lambent Fellowship in the Arts and John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He has also created work on Baryshnikov's White Oak Project, Batsheva Dance Company, Lyon Opera Ballet and Irish Modern Dance Theater.

Darrell Jones has performed in the US and abroad with a variety of choreographers and companies such as Bebe Miller, Urban Bush Women, Ronald K. Brown, Min Tanaka, Ralph Lemon and KOKUMA Dance Theater. In addition to performing, Darrell continues to choreograph and teach. His classes are informed by his training and studies in a variety of dance techniques, improvisation, Butoh and traditional dance forms.

Daniel Lepkoff's work explores movement as a physical interaction with the environment and improvisation as a performance form. In the early ‘70s he was introduced to dance through the study of Developmental Movement and Anatomical Release Technique with Mary Fulkerson and John Rolland. He was a central figure with Steve Paxton and others in the development of Contact Improvisation since its first public showing in ‘72. He is one of the founders of Movement Research in NYC. He teaches and performs his work worldwide.

Mark Lorimer was a dancer with Rosas from 94-97, rehearsal director 2000-2 and still free-lances occassionally. He works mostly now with ZOO/Thomas Hauert in Belgium and is in New York to work with Deborah Hay.

Jodi Melnick has been a featured dancer with Twyla Tharp and Irene Hultman. She continues to perform and work with Sara Rudner, Susan Rethorst and Vicky Shick, and over the past 13 years, has worked with NYC-based choreographers Tere O'Connor, Dennis O'Connor, John Jasperse, Donna Uchizono, Yoshiko Chuma and Yves Musard. In 2002, Jodi began working with Trisha Brown as an assistant director in Schubert's Winterreise, and continues to re-stage the work. As a teacher, she has taught throughout the US, Europe, Australia, Russia and Japan. She has been a guest teacher at SUNY Purchase, NYU School of the Arts, Sarah Lawrence College, Barnard, Long Island University and Hunter College. Her choreography has been commissioned and shown in NYC, Ireland, Estonia, Russia and Japan. Her most recent works, a solo and duet (2003, 2004), were performed in Dublin and Belfast, Ireland. This October 2005, she will present a solo concert at Dance Theater Workshop. Jodi was honored with a 2001 “Bessie” award for sustained achievement in dance. She graduated from SUNY Purchase with a BFA in Dance.

Jennifer Monson is an improvisational practitioner and choreographer, dedicated to the art of performance as an improvisational form. She has created a wide body of work that incorporates well-developed collaborative relationships with many artists including Zeena Parkins, Yvonne Meier, David Zambrano and DD Dorvillier. Recently she has used the concept of navigation as a way of informing her work, and in the past four years has completed three migratory dance tours that followed the journeys of gray whales, ospreys, ducks and geese. She is currently working on iLAND – Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance, a sustainable artist-in-residence facility for artists, environmentalists, scientists and urban designers in Brooklyn.

Polly Motley is a choreographer, performer and teacher who after 14 years of living in Colorado now lives in NY and Vermont. Her choreographic and improvisational performance and intermedia work has been supported with numerous grants and has been commissioned and presented by The Danspace Project, The Kitchen, DTW, Jacob’s Pillow, Colorado Dance Festival, Flynn Theatre, San Francisco Edge Festival, Naropa Institute and the Indonesian Dance Festival, Jakarta. Motley has collaborated with a number of dance, music, visual and literary artists – Molly Davies, Steve Paxton, Dana Reitz, Barbara Dilley, Simone Forti, Charles Amirkhanian, Takehisa Kosugi, Fred Frith, DJ M. Singe, Anne Carson and Jack Collom, among others. She was trained in contemplative dance and dance ethnology as well as a wide range of Western theatrical and popular dance space forms. She brings a contemplative sensibility to all her work.

Chrysa Parkinson is a dancer and teacher in Brussels and NY. This year she is performing with Deborah Hay (US), Thomas Hauert/Zoo (BE), and Jonathan Burrows (UK), and has been a member of Tere O'Connor Dance since '86. Her teaching is influenced by Irene Hultman, Jennifer Monson, Barbara Mahler, Rose Anne Spradlin, David Zambrano, and her fellow performers. Since '98, Chrysa has been involved in an ongoing investigation of performance, technique, and improvisation with AT DeKeersmaker's company Rosas, and with the training program P.A.R.T.S. Chrysa teaches workshops internationally and at Movement Research. In '96 she received a "Bessie" Award for Sustained Achievement.

Lisa Race has toured and taught throughout the US and internationally. A member of David Dorfman Dance since ’89, she received a ‘95 “Bessie” Award for her dancing. Her choreography has been presented in NYC at such venues as Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, DTW and Movement Research at the Judson Church, among others. She was a ’95-96 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence.

Sara Pearson & Patrik Widrig have gained an international following for dance theater work that transforms the familiar into the mysterious, the subversive, and the intimate. They have been touring extensively throughout the US, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and New Zealand since '87, and have been supported by the NEA, NYSCA, NPN, the Asian Cultural Council, Arts International, and the Rockefeller, Jerome, Altria, Harkness, Mertz Gilmore, and Swiss Center Foundations. Their work has been produced annually by major dance venues in NYC. In addition, they have become well known for their video and site works as well as community performance residencies combining dance, music, text, and video. '04-05 engagements include appearances on the 92 on 42 series at the Duke Theater in NYC March 16-20, and tours throughout the US, Austria, Japan, and India.

Felix Ruckert studied dance at the Folkwangshochschule in Essen/Germany, in NYC and Paris. His education has been enriched by studies of body work like Feldenkrais and Ideokinesis as well as his experiences working as a dancer for other choreographers such as Wanda Golonka & VA Wölfl, Mathilde Monnier, Pina Bausch, and more recently with Julyen Hamilton for improvisation. He is regularly invited to teach by various institutions and companies (Berlin, Antwerpen, Paris, Prague, Montréal, Toulouse, Lausanne, Kyoto).

Kathryn Sanders’ ongoing studies of Klein Technique™ with Barbara Mahler and Susan Klein started in ‘95. She has performed in the dances of Wally Cardona, Koosil-ja Hwang, Barbara Mahler and Dean Moss, among others, has taught to a diverse body of dancers in NYC and LA, and is working towards a teacher's certification in Klein TechniqueTM. Danspace Project presented her choreographed solo, Loric Espials, this past summer.

Ray Eliot Schwartz is an international movement artist and body worker who has spent the last 20 years developing a unique synthesis of somatic movement studies and the performing arts. His training includes the North Carolina School of the Arts, a BFA in dance from Virginia Commonwealth University, certification as Practitioner of Body-Mind Centering®, and trainings in Zero-Balancing, Craniosacral Therapy, Traditional Thai Massage, and the Feldenkrais Method®. He is the co-founder of three contemporary dance projects, The Zen Monkey Project, Steve's House Dance Collective, and THEM. He teaches, performs, and conducts research extensively in the US, Europe, and Asia, has been on the faculty of both ADF and Bates Dance Festival, and teaches at many US universities. He is currently pursuing his M.F.A. at the University of Texas at Austin.

Shelley Senter has been involved with experimental and post-modern dance for 20 years, touring throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Russia as a performer, choreographer, director and teacher. She has worked independently and with many artists in NYC, West Coast and international dance communities, including Bebe Miller, Yvonne Rainer, Nina Martin, Susan Rethorst, Wally Cardona, Linda K. Johnson and AXIS Dance company, among many others. She danced with the Trisha Brown Company from ‘86-‘91 and has continued to work with the company as a guest artist, directing special projects and staging Brown’s choreography throughout the US and abroad. Senter has been critically recognized for her distinct approach to movement and is a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique™, which she teaches worldwide. She was recently awarded a San Francisco Bay Area Isadora Duncan (“Izzy”) award.

Kirstie Simson has been a continuous explosion in the contemporary dance scene, bringing audiences into contact with the vitality of pure creation in moment after moment of virtuoso improvisation. Called "a force of nature" by the New York Times, she is an award-winning dancer and teacher who has "immeasurably enriched and expanded the boundaries of New Dance" according to Time Out Magazine, London. Simson’s eternal subject is freedom, as she dares to go beyond the boundaries of form and structure to create movement out of the rhythm of life itself.

David Thomson has worked as a performer/ singer/ choreographer in widely diverse landscapes of performance with such artists as Mel Wong, Remy Charlip, David Roussève, Jane Comfort, Susan Rethorst, Grisha Coleman/Hot Mouth, Tracie Morris, Michel Laub/Remote Control and Trisha Brown ('87 '93) among many others. In '01, he received a New York Dance and Performance ("Bessie") Award for Sustained Achievement in Performance. He is presently collaborating with Ralph Lemon (Come Home Charley Patton), Bebe Miller (Landing/Place) and Dean Moss/Layla Ali (Figures in a Field).

Donna Uchizono, the “Bessie” award winning Artistic Director of Donna Uchizono Company, was hailed by Ms. Magazine’s end of the century issue as “a choreographer making great leaps forward into the 21st century.” A Guggenheim Fellow, Uchizono has received many grants in support of her work, including NEA, two NYFA fellowships, Rockefeller, Jerome, Creative Capital among others. A popular teacher, Uchizono has taught classes and workshops and toured her company extensively throughout the US, Europe and South America.

Gwen Welliver performed with Doug Varone and Dancers from ‘91-00, and in ‘00 joined the Trisha Brown Dance Company as rehearsal director. Gwen is a winner of a “Bessie” Award for Sustained Achievement in dancing. She has taught at numerous studios, festivals and universities in the US and abroad including the ADF, Bates Dance Festival, Dansens Hus (Denmark), International Summer School of Dance (Japan), Kalamata International Dance Festival (Greece), and the Moscow Contemporary Dance Summer School 'TSEH', and was on faculty at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts from ‘95-‘00.

Reggie Wilson is Artistic Director of Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performance Group, an electric company of dancers, shouters (singers) and actor/performers that has toured, collaborated and taught nationally and internationally. The company has been the vehicle for his choreography since '89. Wilson draws from the movement languages of the blues, slave and spiritual cultures of Africans in the Americas (and The Continent), and combines them with post-modern elements to create what he sometimes calls "post-African/Modern dances" or "Neo-hoodoo dance."

Ruth Zaporah is a master teacher, director and performer of physical theater improvisation. Her work takes her throughout the world to dance venues, theaters and spiritual centers. The author of ACTION THEATER: THE IMPROVISATION OF PRESENCE, Ruth is now working on a sequel. She's happy to be visiting NY and grateful to Movement Research for making it possible. www.actiontheater.com