Ayumi Shafer is an educator, choreographer, and mover currently active in the Twin Cities and greater area. Originally from California, Shafer has now been teaching for over 15 years in various cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco (BA, San Francisco State University 2009), Eugene (MFA, University of Oregon 2013), and Minneapolis. As she continues to teach in both public and private institutions, Shafer has focused on collaborating with local artists in both dance and other disciplines. 

In 2014, Shafer co-founded DanceBARN Collective, a nonprofit organization that brings dance to rural communities. In Shafer and her co-director’s vision, DanceBARN has been committed to building community engagement, fostering collaborations, and providing support for dance artists. Recently, Shafer had the opportunity to present some of her work through Inbox@Artbox, The Cowles Center’s Generating Room, and 6x6 Solos. Drawing inspiration from the idea of play, the freedom to act on our impulses, and active curiosity, she strives to create work that tells a story. Shafer is enthusiastic about sharing dance with all members of her communities, and continues to organize events for people with all types of experiences in art and life.

Alexandra is a Carpatho-Rusyn American choreographer based in Minneapolis, MN. She creates original works ranging from solos to evening length group works for the stage and screen. She is a 2021 Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellow at Jacob’s Pillow and a 2020 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow Finalist. Her most recent work, dance film Heritage Sites, premiered in 2020 and will be screened at the 48th annual Athens International Film and Video Festival (OH), Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema (CO), DanceBARN Screendance Festival (MN), and Astoria Film Festival (NY). It is also an Official Selection of the BLOW-UP International Arthouse Filmfest Chicago (IL).

Since relocating to Minneapolis she has been commissioned by Threads Dance Project and the Performing Institute of Minnesota. She has also presented work at The Cowles Center for Dance & the Performing Arts, Candy Box Dance Festival/Arena Dances, Zenon Dance Zone, Future Interstates, and 9x22 dance lab at the Bryant Lake Bowl. She has worked with Jeffrey Peterson Dance, Ethnic Dance Theatre, April Sellers Dance Collective, Helen Hatch/Hatch Dance & Berit Ahlgren, and Paulina Olowska & Jessie Gold.  She has been moving with Black Label Movement under the direction of Carl Flink since 2017. 

Rebecca Katz Harwood’s eclectic career has included work as a performer,
choreographer, teacher, researcher, and arts administrator. She received her
undergraduate degree in Religious Studies and Anthropology from Macalester
College, and her MFA in Dance from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts
(NYU Tisch). 

Her work as a performer has taken her around the Midwest, to both
coasts of the US, as well as to Germany, England, France, Hungary, and Bulgaria. Her
artistic palate is broad and draws on ballet, modern, jazz, folk and social dance
traditions in varying degrees and combinations based on the needs and impulses of
the work being created. The common threads are a belief in the power of movement
to viscerally capture the beauty and variety of human experience, expressed
through a deep musicality and the motivation to communicate and connect with the
audience. Her concert dance choreography has been seen in Minnesota at venues
including MDA/Walker Art Center Choreographers’ Evenings, The Minnesota Fringe
Festival, and the Minnesota Ballet. In New York, her work has been presented by
Ballet Builders, Dixon Place, Symphony Space, DanceNow/NYC and at Madison
Square Garden as part of the NYU Tisch Salute Graduation Celebration of 2005.

In the realm of musical theatre, Ms. Katz Harwood has been fortunate to receive two
Society of Directors and Choreographers Foundation Observerships, in 2002 to
assist John Carrafa on A Little Night Music at the Kennedy Center, and in 2005 to
assist Kathleen Marshall on Two Gentlemen of Verona at the Public Theatre’s
Shakespeare in the Park in New York City. Her own theatre choreography has been
seen at venues in Minnesota, New York, South Dakota, and Seattle, Washington. As a
teacher, Rebecca has been on the faculties of St. Olaf College, Marymount Manhattan
College, and for the past sixteen years, the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD)
Department of Theatre. She has taught master classes and workshops in modern,
jazz, and various social dances of the swing era in Minnesota, Nebraska, at various
American College Dance Association North Central Regional Conferences, as well as
abroad in England and Germany. The fall of 2011 took her to Munich, Germany,
where she was featured as a co-lead instructor with social dance historian Lance
Benishek, for the filming of a teaching DVD on The Big Apple, a famous dance of the
Swing Era, nearly lost but now the subject of renewed interest from swing dancers
around the world.

Rebecca lived in the Cities from 1988 to 2001 (mostly in St. Paul’s Mac Groveland
and Merriam Park neighborhoods). As a performer she worked as an independent
dancer with various choreographers including Sandy Agustin, Brad and Cyndi
Garner, Heidi Geier/Soft Eyed Collaborations, Jill Heaberlin, Marge Maddux,
Christine Maginnis, Paula Mann, and Cathy Young, among others, and was a
company member of Ethnic Dance Theatre and Lance Benishek’s American Cultural
Arts Society Dancers. She taught ballet at Zenon and St. Olaf College, and
administrated for Work and Work Associates, Marge Maddux for the Society of
Dance History Scholars, Cathy Young Dance, and for James Sewell Ballet as their
Operations Manager.

Since the fall of 2006, Ms. Katz Harwood has been based back in her native Duluth,
Minnesota at UMD, where she teaches studio and academic classes in dance and
musical theatre as well as providing choreography for dance concerts and musical
theatre productions. In the spring of 2012, she was awarded Tenure and promoted
to her current rank of Associate Professor. Theatre Choreography credits include A
Year with Frog and Toad, Urinetown!, Sugar, South Pacific, Little Shop of Horrors,
Cinderella, She Loves Me, Time’s Up, and the world premiere of Maxa: The Maddest
Woman in the World. Direction and Choreography cr

Kevin  Kortan has been immersed in sound and movement practices since
childhood. He was a boy soprano and later (after his voice changed!)
became a cantor in church at a young age, where he first encountered the
ancient art of call and response.  A featured soloist in choirs and in
musicals, he studied music and theater at Augsburg College.  Singing
professionally for a time, fate steered him into the art of Dance where he
had the good fortune of having a professional career for many years.

Kevin danced in Zenon Dance Company in Minneapolis, Concert Dance
Company of Boston, and numerous New York companies. In Boston he
performed in works by Mark Morris, Wendy Perron, Mark Dendy, Mark
Taylor, Laura Dean, Merce Cunningham, Kei Takei, David Gordon, Charlie
Moulton, and others. In New York, he performed in the companies of Mark
Taylor, Mark Dendy, Wendy Perron, Nina Wiener, and Victoria Marks. From
1990-96, Kevin danced with the Trisha Brown Dance Company. He has
collaborated with choreographers Jaime Ortega, Patrick Scully, and has
shown his own work in the U.S. and France. Kevin has taught dance
around the world.

Yoga then called him from a life oriented around performing to a life of
transforming, himself and others.  In the ancient tradition, Kevin teaches
breath-centered yoga and yoga therapy practices to people one-on-one
and in groups. He rediscovered his voice and the healing power of sound
through Vedic and other forms of chant. It is with joy that he leads others, in
groups and individually, to find their own voice, connected to their heart.
He has been composing his own chants and shares them through
recordings and Chanting For The Love Of It events. One of his great loves
is synchronizing movement and chanting through an approach he calls
Mantra In Motion. He is a Certified Yoga Therapist & Teacher, Integrative
Somatic Movement Therapist & Educator, Dance Teacher, Yoga Teacher
Trainer, Chant Teacher, as well as the founder and creator of Evolutionary
Yoga™. Please visit Kevin's site at http:// www.evolutionaryyoga.com/

A native of Dayton, Ohio, Mary Ann Bradley trained at the Dayton Ballet School and performed with Dance Theatre Dayton and Dayton Contemporary Dance II. She graduated magna cum laude with a BA in Dance from Point Park University in 1997. Since moving to the Twin Cities, Mary Ann has performed with numerous companies and choreographers including Dancing People Company, TU Dance, Minnesota Dance Theater, Ragamala Music and Dance, and the Minnesota Opera. She was a member of JAZZDANCE! By Danny Buraczeski for four years, two of which she acted as the choreographer’s assistant. She spent twelve seasons performing and touring with Zenon Dance Company. With Zenon, Mary Ann performed original works by many artists including Faye Driscoll, Netta Yerushalmy, Andrea Miller, Doug Varone, luciana achugar, Tere O’Connor, and Morgan Thorson. She has been a dance faculty member for Zenon Dance School and TU Dance School. In 2005, Mary Ann received an honorable mention from the Minneapolis Star Tribune for Artist of the Year. Mary Ann is a 2001 and 2008 recipient of the McKnight Fellowship for dancers. She was named as one of “25 to watch” by Dance Magazine in 2014. She completed her master’s degree in education at the University of Minnesota in 2018 and served on the faculty of the Performing Institute of Minnesota for three years.

SuperGroup is the collaboration of Erin Search-Wells, Sam Johnson, and Jeffrey Wells. They create performance with what is available and what they can make. Their work is deeply invested in multitudinous collaborative processes, rigorous play, and discovering meanings in between. In addition to creating and performing with SuperGroup Jeffrey, Erin, and Sam also have individual art making practices.

John R. Killacky currently serves in the Vermont House of Representatives. Previously he was executive director of Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, program officer for arts and culture at San Francisco Foundation, executive director of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and curator of performing arts for Walker Art Center. Other past positions include program officer at Pew Charitable Trusts, general manager of PepsiCo SUMMERFARE, and managing director of the Trisha Brown and Laura Dean dance companies. He received the First Bank Award Sally Ordway Irvine Award in Artistic Vision, William Dawson Award for Programming Excellence from the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, Dance USA's Ernie Award as an unsung hero, Fan Taylor Distinguished Service Award for Exemplary Service to the Field of Professional Presenting, and Vermont Arts Council's Kannenstine Award for Arts Advocacy. He co-edited the Lambda Literary Award-winning anthology, Queer Crips: Disabled Gay Men and Their Stories.

Stephanie Fellner’s Minneapolis career now spans 3 decades. She recently said goodbye to her old hips in “Zhauna Franks ‘ SwanSong Studies, a two women show.’ No surprise to anyone, she wore them completely out!They produced many high leg moments and served her well!

They will be missed. The new hips had their grand debut this past summer in Berit Ahlgren and Helen Hatch’s production of ‘LDV’!

A member of The Ballet of the Dolls for25yrs., Ms.Stephanie originated numerous roles. Favorites to include: Rat Queen in "Nutcracker...Not so Suite”; “Cinderella” title role; Vicky in “The Red Shoes; Coquette in "King of Hearts"; and Grey In her solo show "Shades of Lady Grey." All choreographed by the infamous Myron Johnson.

Company work to include: TU Dance (founding member,) James Sewell Ballet, The Children's Theatre Co., The Minnesota Opera, The Minnesota Orchestra, NorthStar Opera(Skylark,) and The City Children's Nutcracker.

In addition, she has danced in a variety of pieces choreographed by our treasure trove of Mpls. freelance artists.The two time Sage Awarded "Test Pilot" choreographed by Penelope Freeh. "Kom Hit" a collaboration w/Sally Rousse and Noah Bremer at The Swedish Institute. Other favorite credits to include: Katerina in Live Action Sets, Ivy Award winning "Crime and Punishment" and original production of "A Fiddlers Tale" produced in conjunction with The Mpls. Music Company. 

In 2005, Ms.Fellner was awarded the McKnight Fellowship for Dancers and received "Best Dancer in Mpls." from the City Pages Edition of "The Best Of..." And in 2008, was presented with the Sage Award for "Outstanding Performer."

She is on staff at The Dance Warehouse . where she is joyfully passing on her passion for ballet and the art of performance to her lovely students. She is grateful every day for each and every one of them!

Having completed the full comprehensive Pilates program thru Paragon Pilates and Physical Therapy does teach a bit of Pilates and firmly believes integrating core and balance work to be an invaluable piece in keeping our dancers pain and injury free.

STUART PIMSLER is a choreographer, director, writer, performer, founder and
artistic co-director of Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater (SPDT). His work has been
honored with Choreography Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and
McKnight Foundation and as well as a Major Fellowship and six Individual Fellowships
from the Ohio Arts Council. Mr. Pimsler has been commissioned by the Guthrie Theater,
the Lila Wallace Arts Partners Fund, National Performance Network Creation Fund, the
Jerome Foundation, the Wexner Center, University of Minnesota, the Walker Art Center,
The Wharton Center at Michigan State University among others.

Based in Minneapolis since 1999, SPDT has toured to Europe, Israel, Taiwan, Russia,
Canada, Bermuda, China, and Mexico including presentations at the Beijing Modern
Dance Festival, International Tanzmesse, Dusseldorf, the Bermuda Ministry of Culture
and the National Center for the Arts, UNAM and American Embassy in Mexico City. In
the U.S. SPDT has appeared in more then 35 States at such venues as the The Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts, the National Civil Rights Museum, Jacob’s Pillow, the
American Dance Festival, and New York Live Arts.

His new book, The Choreography of Care/Engaging Caregivers in Creative Expression
chronicles the internationally recognized arts in health work of Mr. Pimsler and Suzanne
Costello. (choreographyofcare.com) Their work has been recognized for “Best Practices”
by the National Endowment for the Arts and as a “national model” by The Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts.

As a teller of imagistic stories, Pimsler is interested in the interplay of movement and
words situated in specific settings. His work is constructed in a world of layers connected
through theme, metaphor, and memory. The emblematic layers of his aesthetic are
realized through emotionally textured movement, narrators, place, dialogue, song, design,
video, and the vulnerability of SPDT’s exquisite performers. Pimsler is compelled by the
personal and political and how each of these sectors influences everyday life.

Mr. Pimsler holds an A.B. in English from Franklin & Marshall College and in 2015, he
was celebrated with an Alumni Citation for his exemplary record of accomplishments. He
also has a J.D. from Catholic University School of Law and was admitted to the New
York State Bar in 1975. The following year he was accepted as an M.F.A. Fellow in
Dance at Connecticut College where he evolved his aesthetic with the mentorship of
Martha Myers. He was also honored to work with Daniel Nagrin, whose solos Spanish
Dance (1948) and Word Game (1968) he continues to perform.

As cultural activist, Mr. Pimsler has served on the Board of Directors of Dance/USA
(1990-97) and the Steering Committee of the National Performance Network (1992-95).
He has served as panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, the McKnight
Foundation, Bush Foundation and an array of arts councils and agencies throughout the
U.S. In 2005, Pimsler founded The SAGE Awards for Dance, an annual celebration of
outstanding dance achievements throughout Minnesota which he co-coordinated with
Dana Kassel through 2016.

www.stuartpimsler.com

After Carleton College, Lindalee joined Dance Studio Margret Dietz and Choreogram Dance Company in the early 1970s. She also studied with Shirley Mordine, Cathy Ward, Erik Hawkins, Bill T. Jones and Helmut Gottschild. She crafted a practice in dance/movement as a human service in churches, prisons, womens’ shelters, mens’ treatment centers and with absolute beginners from ages 2 to 82. She solo'd as Webweaver in ‘Dark Dances’ by Marie (Winckler) Nickell at the Walker and in 2010 co-authored the memoir “Margret Dietz – A Dancer’s Legacy” with Freeman and Nickell. Since 2015, she has agitated for housing stability and currently advocates for homeless Americans (2022).