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. She is currently teaching at the Alexander Technique school and focusing on her private practice.

Longing for a unique and intensive dance training, Kelly East received a degree in dance from Hollins University. Other influential studies include: 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, and Ray Elliot Schwartz' Body Mind Centering workshop '01. In her four years as a member of the Zen Monkey Project, Kelly has performed in three evening length pieces, co-produced an evening of dance works with Bill Dufford, and taught in various capacities. She also spent two years in northern California teaching classes and workshops, facilitating contact improvisation jams, collaboratively making work and producing that work with a dance collective called the Glass Bead Players. Most recently, Kelly produced and directed an evening length vision of dance theater, "The Palimpsest", where the audience migrates through a world of sculptured installation pieces. Images from this work are on this web site and on the summer intensive brochure.

Jennifer Tweel Kelly is a native of Virginia and has been dancing for twenty-four years. She has been influenced by her studies and experiences including Bates Dance Festival, American Dance Festival, Tisch School of the Arts, Dancers' Group Studio in SF, Susan Klein technique, Alexander technique and a BA in Dance from James Madison University. Jen has danced with Chavasse Dance and Performance Group, CORA/ Shannon Hummel, and the Zen Monkey Project among others. She has shown her work primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area and Central Virginia in such venues as the Lenfest Center, Dance Mission Studio Theater, Cowell Theater, Vinegar Hill Film Festival and New Dance Space. Jen owns The Hip Joint, a dance shop in Downtown Charlottesville and lives with her husband, Christian and their three year old, Maya.

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 member of two improvisation theatre companies

Allison Waddell is a dancer, teacher, choreographer, and improvisor who has been a member of the Zen Monkey Project, THEM, Chavasse Dance and Performance, Even Exchange Dance Theater, Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians, and Immediate Theater. She has taught and performed her work and the work of others across the US and abroad. She recently relocated to NYC from Raleigh, NC and is excited to be joining the ZMP faculty.

After graduating from James Madison University with a BA in both dance and interdisciplinary philosophy with creative writing in 2002, Lauren decided that Charlottesville would be a good stepping stone into the greater world. Attracted to the dance life of the inspiring Zen Monkeys, she expected Charlottesville to be a place where she could explore her personal movement practice alongside others who would encourage her in both depth and flamboyance. During this time she co-founded the modern dance company Seed Dance Exchange, performed with Kosei's KIN and Monochrome Circus in NYC, performed with Prospect Dance Group, worked and performed with Katharine Birdsall, performed in Kelly East's evening length work The Palimpsest, and co-directed an outdoor work of wandering dance theatre and improvisation called Time for Tea in Times of War. Lauren has also worked at The Living Education Center for Ecology and the Arts (LEC) for the past three years as a teacher and an administrative assistant. For the past two years she has enjoyed being a dance teacher for the Charlottesville Parks and Recreation Department, teaching the abundant supply of cute little ones a variety of different dance and movement forms. She is a student of the Alexander Technique and Reiki, and is quite honestly a bodywork junkie. Lauren is excited to start her summer with the continuing exploration of the abundant life and art of the body at the 7th annual ZMP intensive.

Azriel Getz lives with her family in a rural community in Northern California. From early ballet beginnings, she went on to study modern and ethnic dance in the World Arts and Cultures Program at UCLA and completed a BA in Theater Arts from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1998. Azriel continued her dance education at the American Dance Festival and in New York City, where she trained at the Cunningham Studio and sampled the myriad methods and trends of movement and performance. Not really a "city person," Azriel gratefully landed in Charlottesville to dance with the Zen Monkey Project from 1999-2000, before moving back to her home town in California. In 2001, she initiated the creation of a collaborative dance theater company, The Glass Bead Players, with Bill Dufford, and together they made dances and taught workshops until mid-2004. In between, Azriel has taken time to facilitate a small but fertile contact improvisation group, direct a similarly small but active Cultural Center, and be an advocate for the arts in schools and rural communities. Azriel currently teaches modern dance technique at Nevada Union High School and practices improvisation with her one-year old son, Luca.

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.

Much like the animals in Africa who know just where the watering hole is, Ray Eliot Schwartz travels the lands in order to return to the source pool of creative practice, belief, and nourishment that is the Zen Monkey Project. In the interim, he is a movement artist and activist who has spent the last 20 years committed to developing an experiential understanding of the body. As a co-founder of three contemporary dance projects in the southeastern United States: The Zen Monkey Project, Steve's House Dance Collective, and THEM, he has choreographed, performed, presented other artists, and developed educational curricula for diverse populations of students. In addition, he has taught at The Mimar Sinan Universitesi in Istanbul, Turkey, and colleges and universities throughout the U.S. Schwartz has served on the faculty of the American Dance Festival, the Bates Dance Festival, MELT, the Movement Research educational intensive located in NYC, and has taught, performed and conducted research extensively in the U.S, Europe and Asia. His training includes high school at the North Carolina School of the Arts and a BFA in Dance from Virginia Commonwealth University. Additional study includes certification as Practitioner of Body-Mind Centering, trainings in Zero-Balancing, Cranio-Sacral Therapy, Traditional Thai Massage, and the Feldenkrais Method. Currently he is completing his M.F.A. at the University of Texas at Austin, where he balances a rigorous schedule of academic research with a commitment to service and activism within the Austin, Texas arts scene. Towards that end, he directs Sheep Army/Elsewhere Dance Theater, teaches classes in dance, movement, and body-work, researches the aesthetic and pedagogical implications evoked by the integration of somatic movement education and contemporary dance forms, presents papers at conferences, publishes articles, and learns, learns, learns. This summer, in addition to the ZMP intensive, and a general relocation towards some new frontiers of living, he will be teaching at SFADI, in Seattle.

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, New York City, 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 6 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.

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.

Leah Jasmine Wilke 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.

Savitri D, love warrior, lives in Brooklyn. She is a founding member of the ZMP, a writer, sometimes performer and visual artist. She currently directs The Church of Stop Shopping, a radical performance community dedicated to economic and ecological justice. Savitri earns a living as a visiting artist and has been in residence at more than 30 colleges, universities and festivals in the last 2 years. Her primary physical practice is yoga and she travels with her running shoes. You will find her blog at www.revbilly.com