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The Zen Monkey Project:
Since
its inception in 1995, the Zen Monkey Project has been
consistently exploring the boundaries of somatic movement education and contemporary
dance forms. Our style is rigorous, experimental, and alive. Investigating
the body, developing dynamic presence, and supporting curiosity are hallmarks
of their distinctive synthesis.
Our
practice draws from a variety of methods and approaches
for questioning the body and embodying questions. Our curriculum melds
these influences into
creative work. As contemporary movement artists we combine
a reverence for tradition with respect for the individual's voice. As
educators we support the student's current process while presenting them tools
for enriching their potential. This intensive invites you to investigate and embody your
own working process, learn with a diverse group of artists, and share your
experience with others.
The faculty:
Ray Eliot Schwartz is a 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 high school at the North Carolina School of the Arts, a BFA in dance from Virginia Commonwealth University, certification as Practitioner of Body-Mind Centering, trainings in Zero-Balancing, Cranio-Sacral Therapy, Traditional Thai Massage, and the Feldenkrais Method. He has co-founded three contemporary dance projects in the Southeastern United States: The Zen Monkey Project, Steve's House Dance Collective, and THEM. He has taught at The Mimar Sinan Universitesi in Istanbul, Turkey, and many universities in the U.S. He has been on the faculty of both the American Dance Festival in Durham, N.C., and the Bates Dance Festival in Lewiston, Maine. He has recently joined the faculty of MELT, the Movement Research educational intensive located in NYC. He has traveled extensively in the U.S.A., Europe, and Asia-teaching, researching, and performing. He is currently pursuing his M.F.A. at the University of Texas at Austin.
Julie Rothschild began taking ballet in Palo Alto, California as a child and slowly but surely, sought out other movement styles, such as musical theater, athletics, modern dance and contact improvisation. She has worked as a choreographer, performer and teacher in Ohio, Colorado, Kansas,Virginia, Maryland, D.C. and Georgia. She has danced with the Prairie Wind Dancers, aha! Dance Theatre, Zen Monkey Project, and apprenticed with the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. Julie currently lives in Athens, GA, where she teaches modern dance at the University of Georgia, and serves as a Dance Panelist for Georgia Council for the Arts. She is one of the founding members of Warehouse Collective, and curates The Handful Series, an annual performance designed to bring regional contemporary dance artists to Athens. She is currently participating in an Alexander Technique teacher-training program in Greensboro, NC.
Katharine Birdsall teaches, performs, and makes dances in Charlottesville where she lives with her husband and two children. She has worked as a guest artist throughout the United States since 1990. Her early training was with Ballet Florida's School in West Palm Beach, and high school at St Paul's School in Concord New Hampshire. She received her BFA in dance from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, her certification to teach the Alexander Technique from the Virginia School, and was the director of the New Dance Space for seven years. She has also trained in Zero Balancing, Tai Chi, Pilates, and the Klein Technique. Katharine is currently studying Ashtanga Yoga and dancing in the latest of ZMP's evening length works.
Bill Dufford attended the University of Maryland-College Park on a full tuition scholarship. After graduation he performed with the Zen Monkey Project for two years. Then he relocated to Nevada City, California where he co-founded, with Azriel Getz, the Glass Bead Players, a dance theater company committed to promoting dance outside of urban centers and exploring collaboration. After three years in California he has moved back to Charlottesville and is taking a year off from creating and performing. Instead he is focusing on teaching and as the writer in several collaboratively created children's book projects with local illustrators, including fellow Zen Monkey Intensive teacher Zap McConnell.
Longing for a unique and intensive dance training, Kelly East received a BA in dance from Hollins University. She was also influenced through the following studies: four summers at the American Dance Festival, Nancy Stark Smith's January intensive 01' and 05'. Goat Island summer intensive 01' through the Chicago Art's Institute, The Zen Monkey Project summer intensive and Body Mind Centering workshop '01. Since graduation she has performed in two evening length pieces with the Zen Monkey Project, co-produced a show with Bill Dufford, and taught in the ZMP summer intensive last year. She also spent two years in a rural artistic community in northern California teaching classes and workshops, hosting contact improvisation jams, collaboratively making work and producing that work with a dance collective called The Glass Bead Players. Kelly is directing the next Zen Monkey performance project, which will culminate this spring.
Leah Jasmine Wilk has been dancing and making dances since childhood. At
fifteen she began studying contemporary dance, Body-Mind Centering, and improvisation with members of the Zen Monkey Project, and has continued to study, perform, and teach with ZMP throughout her adult life. Leah continued her education at Virginia Commonwealth University in the Dance & Choreography Department. She has also studied with Chris Aiken, Martin Keogh, Karen Nelson, Nancy Stark Smith, and everyone else she has ever danced with. Leah is a certified yoga instructor and enjoys teaching yoga and dance to children and adults. She has studied a wide range of yoga styles, including Anusara, which is what she is currently studying and practicing. She has a deep love for improvisation and is committed to the investigation of the body in motion and stillness.
Zap McConnell began investigating dance/movement performance at North Carolina School of the Arts in 1988. Upon leaving NCSA, she began traveling, splitting her time between performance/art and direct environmental activism in Northern California, Idaho, Mexico, Costa Rica and Colorado. Zap has been involved with the Zen Monkey Project since 1995 performing, teaching, organizing performance festivals and dance intensives, facilitating the New Dance Space, stage managing, producing and directing. She is also a visual artist who regularly creates and prints cartoon books, paints, and has built performance installation sets that included both lights and costumes. For the past 5 years Zap has been a full time core teacher at the Living Education Center for Ecology and the Arts, an alternative high school in Charlottesville, V.A. In 2004 she directed Three of Swords; photos of which are placed throughout this web page and on our brochure.
Jen Stone has been studying yoga since she was 21 years old in NYC, where she began her professional dance career. 12 years later she has completed the Health Advantage Yoga Teacher Training certification program, studied with an array of nationally known yoga instructors, is still dancing and performing professionally, and has been bringing her excitement and love of her dancing yoga body into studios throughout Northern, VA. Jen Stone focuses on the Anusara technique developed by John Friend.
Brad Stoller has been practicing contact improvisation for over 20 years. Brad is a certified Alexander Technique teacher and has a black belt in Aikido. He has been living in Virginia for many years where he dances, writes plays, and teaches theatre and dance. Brad is published playwright and a memebr of two improvisation theatre companies.
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