Krista DeNio is a choreographer/performer/writer/ director/educator and arts administrator, recently re-located from Brooklyn, New York.

She has created, performed and directed dance/theater works and collaborated with numerous artists and companies in San Francisco, (CA), Albuquerque/Santa Fe (NM), Boulder/Denver (CO), and NYC.  In San Francisco, she co-founded the Experimental Performance Institute (EPI), with BA, MA/MFA tracks, at the New College of California, where she served positions as Movement/Theater Faculty, Administrative Director, and Outreach Director between 2002-2007.

Krista's current Movement Theater project limblimb, deals with human relationship to our own nature, violence, war and what the human spirit is capable of. limblimb is being workshopped in New York, San Francisco, and here in Western MA, with various partner organizations including: CounterPULSE (SF), Earthdance (Western, MA), and several potential partners in NY and NM.

Spirit has taught movement workshops and classes in college and community settings in Boston, Western Massachusetts, Ohio, Wisconsin, Spain, and Germany as well as at Earthdance and DNE Dance Camp. His performances have included work with the Dance Generators (a multi-generational dance company based in Northampton), with Group Atness (an improvisational dance collective which he co-founded with several other dancers), as well as several solos and duets performed in local community settings.

Jacqueline Rubinstein is a dancer, researcher, and slowly-evolving scientist. Her interests lie in improvisation as an art and life practice, neurobiology, and expanding the possibilities of easy, pleasurable movement for herself and others. She is a Feldenkrais Guild certified Awareness Through Movement teacher and is continuing her studies to become a Functional Integration Practitioner. Jacqueline works with people who have restricted movement, chronic tension and pain, abnormal developmental and neurological growth, and anyone wishing to live and move more comfortably.

Jacqueline received a BA in Choreography from Wesleyan University. This was the beginning of understanding the joy, expression, curiosity, and pleasure that comes from improvisational movement and play. Jacqueline is very excited to join the Earthdance Community. Jacqueline is also dedicated to exploring, learning, and working towards greater social justice, especially in relation to anti-racism, anti-sexism, and queer activism.  She hopes to engender greater diversity and safe, open, honest, challenging space at Earthdance. 

Kristen Stake has been working in nonprofit administration for the past decade and holds an MFA in Poetry Writing from Vermont College. Joining Earthdance and the larger community of Western Massachusetts has been an absolute delight for her. She is grateful to meet so many brilliant dancers, choreographers, and teachers and loves collaborating with the talented staff members at Earthdance. As a former grant writer and event planner for the Girl Scouts, Kristen brings passion and professionalism for hosting fabulous Earthdance workshops, jams, and festivals.

Kristen hails from Portland, Maine, where she practiced contemporary dance for ten years at the New Dance Studio and performed in works by Daniel McCuster, Jody Weber, Sarah McCormick, Maria Tzianabos, and her mentor, Carl Rudman. She discovered contact improvisation in 2006 and has been enthralled with it ever since. Her current dance investigation explores spontaneous movement, the aesthetics of contact improvisation, the unavoidable experiences of gender, race, and class, and the practice of noticing what is already present.

Just Manocchia,
Buildings & Grounds Coordinator

The buildings and grounds manager is responsible for oversight of Earthdance facilities and grounds. He oversees the upkeep of facilities, general maintenance, and home improvements. He coordinates work parties for major projects, monitors garbage and recycling, removes snow, weatherizes buildings, and so much more. All in all, the Buildings & Grounds Coordinator is the general fix-it person on staff.

Just is interested in the universal principles embedded in the practice of contact improvisation, embodied intelligence, and developing the old/new skill sets that have brought him to Earthdance.

With a diverse history of experience ranging from illustration, graphic design, software technical support, raw food prep and service, catering, ferment making, produce managing, solar installation, DJ-ing, healing arts, and a mish mash of other fix it's and do it's, Just is passionate about cultivating a wide range of expertise during these emerging times of shifting culture, and seeks a growing synthesis of place, community, and action.

Kalyan was raised in the macrobiotic community, where his family instilled in him a passion for learning and food when he was very young. Inspired by a deep commitment to caring for him-self, he has studied the body, herbal medicine, nutrition, and massage. His eager curiosity and fascination with the natural world led him to a life-long investigation of permaculture, natural building, and alternative methods of agriculture.

Kalyan is a sadaka, or, seeker of Truth on the yogic path of self-inquiry, in search of that place of contemplative silence in every moment of everyday. His path has brought him to this beautiful location called Earthdance, where he has joyously found the place, space, and the company to support him on his path to self.

Melinda Buckwalter is the publicity coordinator for Earthdance, where she has enjoyed many a dance workshop, serves on the programming committee, and works on special projects, like being a co-curator of the SEEDS (Somatic Experiments in Earth, Dance + Science) festival. She lives closeby in Cummington, with her husband John Selfridge, a former book publisher-turned-English-teacher at Northampton High School. You can enjoy her dance writing, cartooning, editing/curatorial skills in Contact Quarterly the dance and improvisation journal, where she also works. Melinda is currently completing a book project, Composing While Dancing: An Improviser's Companion, to be published by the University of Wisconsin Press in 2010. Her interest is in the body and movement: she currently teaches and practices Qigong, Jin Shin Jyutsu, yoga, and dance improvisation/composition.