Jungwoong Kim, born and raised in South Korea, has been a dance/performing artist, actor and arts educator for 25 years.  He is trained in Korean martial arts and traditional dance/ritual of Korean shamanism, which strongly inform his aesthetic and artistic vision.  Kim describes his practice as “a dynamic dialogue between my training and background in South Korean traditional dance and music and my embrace of western improvisation, especially Contact Improvisation, as a performance medium.”  His performance practice includes improvisational solos, durational ensemble work with long-time collaborators, site-specific engagements with visual and media art, and movement characterizations for mainstage theater productions. He teaches workshops nationally and internationally that focus on movement and observation practices as a form of thinking that we can apply to any aspect of life, be it dancing, making, or being in the world. During the past couple of years his work has focused on how movement and voice are pathways to finding a sense of “home” and belonging at a time of increasing migration, displacement, hostility toward immigrants, and human isolation.  Recent engagements include the role of the water seller in Philadelphia’s Wilma Theater production of Bertolt Brecht’s Good Person of Szechuan and leading improvisation workshops in Colombia, Argentina, Germany and South Korea.

*Photo by Rachel Keane

Rachael Lincoln and Leslie Seiters met in San Francisco in 1997 dancing on steel apparatuses under the direction of Jo Kreiter. Since then, with gaps and lapses, they have been in the middle of a project together more than not, creating across various life stages and state lines. Their work has been presented in many of the places they’ve lived including Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle. It has also taken them to Almada, Portugal where they tasted the world’s finest egg tart, Jakarta, Indonesia, where they had a surreal karaoke experience, and Bytom, Poland, where the entire town’s power shut down for 15 seconds in the middle of their show. Their dances have been both lauded and panned by press, have sold out and been ignored, and have provided them with 25 years of process and friendship and sometimes ambition and occasionally depletion, and always something both known and a mystery. Rachael is an associate professor at the University of Washington and Leslie is a professor at San Diego State University. Some of their shared mentor/collaborator/influences are: Sara Shelton Mann, Jo Kreiter, Kathleen Hermesdorf, Bebe Miller, K.J. Holmes, Amelia Rudolph, Keith Hennessy, Kim Epifano, Joe Goode, and LIVEpractice/AVID. They are currently touring Long Playing, part three of an accidental trilogy of evening-length duets.

*Photo by Tim Richards

Bebe Miller’s vision of dance resides in her faith in the moving body as a record of thought, experience, and beauty. She has collaborated with artists, composers, writers, and designers, along with the dance artists who share her studio practice and from whom she’s learned what dancing can reveal. Her work encompasses choreography, writing and film, along with digital archive products that share her creative practice. A native New Yorker, she formed Bebe Miller Company in 1985. Since then, the Company has been commissioned by leading venues including NYC’s 651 ARTS, BAM Next Wave, New York Live Arts and The Joyce Theater; Jacob’s Pillow (Lee, MA); Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus, OH); and has performed worldwide. Her choreography has been performed by A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Oregon Ballet Theater, Philadanco, and PACT Dance of Johannesburg, RSA among others. Named a Master of African American Choreography by the Kennedy Center, Bebe has received honorary doctorates and numerous awards, and is one of the inaugural class of Doris Duke Artist Award recipients. A Professor Emerita at Ohio State University, she is currently living on Vashon Island and thinks it’s swell.

*Julieta Cervantes

Amelia Rudolph focuses on art’s transformational and restorative nature to initiate a shift of perspective and ignite a sense of possibility. A dancer-athlete, choreographer, filmmaker, and public speaker, Amelia is best known as the founder of the dance company BANDALOOP. Since 1991 her award-winning work has been on the vanguard of innovation in dance, fusing post-modern movement, rock climbing technology, and a spirit of adventure. It has been seen by thousands in live performances and by millions through various media formats.