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Elikem Alfred Kunustor
Elikem Alfred Kunutsor is a Ghanaian, who holds an MA and BA Honours in Dramatic Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), South Africa. Elikem majored in Physical Theatre and Design. His approach to the performing arts is rooted in embodied, physical presence rather than genre classifications. He is currently a PhD candidate with the University of Cape Town.
His research focusses on creating a regenerative African performance making practice based on ancient, indigenous mind-body forms from Ghana, West Africa. He is an arts educator, performer, performance maker, and project leader. He guest teaches and examines for Drama for Life, University of the Witwatersrand. He has lectured Movement Studies for Wits School of Arts, taught Performance Studies and Design in the Theatre Arts Department, University of Ghana, and was Head of the Creative Arts Department, Tema International School. His creative arts somatic education work is found in Ghana, South Africa and Germany.
Giselle Ruzhany
Giselle Ruzany, Ph.D. LPC is a Brazilian-American dancer descendent of Polish Jews, catholic Native Indigenous and Afro Brazilians. She has a private practice as a licensed professional counselor presently located in Washington DC. Throughout her journey as a psychotherapist and choreographer, Giselle has been investigating the crossroads between dance and psychology and how the world of somatic informs both. She has a Masters in Somatic Psychology with a concentration in Dance/Movement Therapy from Naropa University, post-graduate certifications in Gestalt Therapy and EMDR, and a Ph.D. in Expressive Arts Therapy from Lesley University. For more information, you can visit her at www.gestaltdance.com.
Ashley Fargnoli
Ashley Fargnoli, MA, BC-DMT, LCPC is a dance/movement therapist and licensed psychotherapist specialized in working in conflict affected countries and with populations who have undergone severe trauma. She has worked alongside refugees, immigrants, survivors of intimate partner violence, survivors of human trafficking, and LGBTQ+ communities. Ashley is an alumna of the MA in Dance/Movement Therapy and Counseling program at Columbia College, Chicago and also holds a MA in Cultural Project Management from the Institute of Political Studies (France). Ashley was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka from October 2019-March 2020.
Dhanushka Seneviratne
Dhanushka Seneviratne, MA, BA, is a professional dancer, dance drama artist,choreographer,and lecturer at University of Kelaniya, Department of Fine Arts, Sri Lanka. She has been a professional choreographer for more than 20 years and has travelled to Thailand, Pakistan, and Dubai as a choreographer representing Sri Lanka. She has won international and national awards for her choreography. Her current research interests include collaborative research on Sri Lanka’s low country dance and DMT (Dance/ Movement Therapy). She has several book publications on dance and drama (in Sinhala).
Pushpanjali Sharma
Pushpanjali Sharma is from India and holds a M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies with a specialization in Embodied Studies, from Lesley University, Cambridge, U.S.A. She has researched, practiced and facilitated somatic practices and embodied inquiry with both individuals and groups. She is also a performing artist- singer, dancer and actor who has studied Arts as a healing and therapeutic practice, through which she has developed her own approach of what she calls Transformative Creative Practice. She is also a yogini and a regular practitioner of various meditative practices from Eastern Spiritual Traditions, with a keen intention to honor the sacred feminine. As an educator she has been serving as a creative director for a kindergarten school where along with her husband she trained a team of teachers to create interactive creative educational content for children during the pandemic; she is also serving as the wellbeing educator at IIT, Goa India where she is training students in self-knowing and self-care practices towards Transformative Embodied Leadership.
Celeste Snowber
Celeste Snowber, PhD is dancer, poet, writer and award-winning educator who is a Professor in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University in Canada. Celeste interweaves multidisciplinary forms in her performances and published works and attention to embodied ways of inquiry has been central to Snowber’s scholarly and artistic work for over two decades. Among her books are Embodied prayer and Embodied inquiry: Writing, living and being through the body as well as three collections of poetry. Her most recent book of poetry, The marrow of longing, explores her Armenian identity and has been published with HARP Press in Spring 2021. Celeste creates site-specific performances and has been the Artist in Residence in the University of British Columbia Botanical Garden creating full-length performances connecting poetry and dance out of each season. She is presently finishing a book about site-specific performance, place, ecology and the body. Celeste has performed across North America and Internationally in a variety of venues, including concerts, galleries, museums, conferences and outdoor spaces. She can be found dancing between the land and sea or at www.celestesnowber.com.