LEAH STEIN, Artistic Director, founded the Leah Stein Dance Company in 1998. Originally from the Hudson Valley New York, Leah Stein had been living and making dances in Philadelphia for the past 15 years. A sensitive and unique performer her work has been performed nationally in galleries, theaters, museums, outdoor sites, and dance festivals across the country. She has performed and taught in Java, Indonesia, Canada, Poland, Romania, Japan, and Scotland. She has been awarded grants from Dance Advance, the Leeway Foundation, the PA Council on the Arts including three Fellowships in Choreography, among others. She was a 1999 finalist for the PEW Fellowships in the Arts. She has been in residence at Yellow Springs Art Institute, the American Dance Festival, The Winter Pillow, and Djerassi Resident Artist Program in California where she received an honorary award for her work "Barn Dance". In 2001, Stein was awarded a Herald Angel Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland for "In Situ" created for the extraordinary DanceBase building in Edinburg. Stein has collaborated with dancer/choreographers Sean Feldman and Gus Solomons Jr, sculptors Jeanne Jaffe and Ed Dormer, poet Josie Foo, and composers/musicians Robert Maggio, Mark Weber, David Forlano, and Dave Burrell. She has been collaborating with percussionist Toshi Makihara for over 15 years. She currently teaches at Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore Colleges.

ROKO KAWAI is a Philadelphia-based independent dancer/choreographer who is currently investigating the relationship between the specificity of traditional dance and the craft ofimprovisation. In 2000, she returned to her earlier study of Japanese Classical Dance and has since focused her exploration on its physicality, musicality and theatricality as inspiration for post-modern improvisation and choreography. Recently, she has worked with the Asia Pacific Performance Exchange and "The Art of Rice" international tour through UCLA's Center for Intercultural Performance, which brought together traditional Asian performance genres with contemporary dance-making. Her work has been presented throughout Philadelphia, at Movement Research Exchange and Symphony Space in New York, Northwestern University in Chicago, at the Florida Dance Festival, Jacob's Pillow Inside/Out, and in New Zealand. Formerly trained as a visual artist, Roko has often collaborated with artists from other disciplines including musicians David Forlano (found object, recorded/live soundscore), Lenny Seidman/Splinter Group (world percussion), and Reggie Workman and Oliver Lake (jazz), and theater designers Helen Todd (light) and Hiroshi Iwasaki (stage installation). Roko has been supported by the Artists Exploration Fund of Arts International, Dance Advance, Independence Foundation, the PA Council on the Arts, DanceLINK, and others. In 2003, she was awarded The Pew Fellowship in the Arts for Choreography. She has been dancing for the Leah Stein Dance Company since 1992.

DANIELLE KINNE, originally from the deserts of Ridgecrest, California, received her BFA in Modern Dance at Temple University. She began her formal training at Interlochen Arts Academy and attended Purchase College, SUNY. While living in California's Bay Area, Danielle was a member of Blind Geese Dance Co. and Crash Burn and Die Dance Co. In Philadelphia, she has worked and performed for Philip Grosser, Meghan Durham/MERGE Dance Company, Megan Mazarick, Makoto Hirano, and Olive Prince. As a member of Leah Stein Dance Company, she has appeared in works such as Carmina Burana and GATE. She premiered Merian Soto's What Is Love? in New York City as part of Lincoln Center's Out Of Doors summer series and appeared at Bates Dance Festival with Marianela Boan's BoanDanzAction in False Testimony. In addition to performing, Danielle helped curate a film forum for short dance films, and premiered her own film in the 2006 Philly Fringe Festival.

DAVID KONYK graduated from Temple University Cum Laude with a BFA in Dance. For the past twelve years, he has spent most of his dancing time with Scrap Performance Group/ Myra Bazell, Group Motion Dance Theater, Kate Watson-Wallace, The Bald Mermaids, The Reactionaries and Leah Stein Dance Company. Battle Hymns was David's eighth performance with the Leah Stein Dance Company.

JAAMIL OLAWALE KOSOKO, poet, choreographer, and performance artist, is the director of KOSOKO PERFORMANCE GROUP, an interdisciplinary ensemble that creates spectacle-dance installations that draw from visual, literary, and theatrical elements. Experience KOSOKO/perFORMance online. Kosoko's choreographic work in dance film and performance have been presented at Joyce SoHo, Dance Theater Workshop, Bennington College, Dancespace at St. Mark's Church, the CEC Meeting House Theater, among other national venues. Kosoko has been published in The Dunes Review, The Interlochen Review, Silo Literary and Visual Arts Magazine, and has new work forthcoming in American Poetry Review this summer. He has been a Resident Poet at the Hudson School, Hoboken, NJ, and the Controlled Burn Seminar for Writers, Higgins Lake, MI. Currently, Kosoko's second collection of poems Animal in Cyberspace is available for purchase online via email at KOSOKOPERFORMANCE@gmail.com. He is a contributing writer for the Broad Street Review and a Program Associate for Dance/USA Philadelphia. This is Kosoko's third season with Leah Stein Dance Company.

TOSHI MAKIHARA studied drums, percussion and improvisation with Sabu Toyozumi, a prominent percussionist in Tokyo. Since arriving in the United States, he has worked with various new music ensembles as well as with numerous dance and theater companies internationally. Makihara has worked with Joel Thome's WORLD SOUND, and provided original music to Arden Theater Company, Diversions Dance Company (Wales), Pennsylvania Ballet, ZeroMoving Dance Company, Merian Soto/Performance Practice, Leah Stein Dance Company and Zornitsa Stoyanova's Here[begin] Dance Company. Over the years, he has worked with musicians including Steve Beresford, Peter Brotzmann, John Butcher, Nels Cline, Eugene Chadbourne, Tom Cora, Amy Denio, Thurston Moore, William Parker and John Zorn. He has also collaborated with poets, visual artists, filmmakers and performance artists widely. Visit www.toshimakihara.com to learn more about his work.

SHAVON NORRIS is an artist, educator and performer. Originally from New York City, she received a BA from Manhattanville College where she majored in Biology and a MFA in dance from Temple University. Shavon uses interdisciplinary methods of creation and development to investigate and expose what has been witnessed, inherited, remembered and experienced. Shavon's work has been presented at Manhattanville College, Soshana Theater, The Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Temple University, The National Constitutional Center, Art's Sanctuary, Chester Eastside Ministries and at Joyce Soho for the New Dance Alliance Mix. She has performed in works by Nia Love, Max Luna, Treva Offut, Gabri Crista, Silvana Cardell, Marianela Boan, Kemal Nance, Meghan Durham, Manfred Fischbeck, Leah Stein and Merian Soto. As an educator, Shavon teaches school age children to college students, locally and nationally. Presently, Shavon teaches at Independence Charter School and Dance Alchemy. Shavon's artistic and educational philosophies are rooted in the desire to give herself, students, performers and audiences opportunities to deepen the understanding of self and the collective.

JUMATATU POE hails from California, by way of Philadelphia, PA. He is an alum of Swarthmore College and a graduate of the MFA program at Temple University. While at Swarthmore, Jumatatu studied the Umfundalai technique (under C. Kemal Nance) and other African-inspired dance styles, performed in student and faculty choreographed works, and created Hip-Hop/Dancehall infused works for the student-run company, Rhythm N Motion. Jumatatu has trained at Philadanco and in the Jacob's Pillow and Illadelph Legends Festivals. Jumatatu has performed in the works of Charles Anderson, Oscar Araìz, Myra Bazell, Stafford Berry, Marianela Boan, Silvana Cardell, H.T. Chen, Clyde Evans, Phil Grosser, Tania Isaac, Kun-Yang Lin, C. Kemal Nance, Merian Soto, Leah Stein, Keith Thompson, Kate Watson-Wallace, and Kariamu Welsh (as a member of Kariamu & Company: Traditions). In 2008, Jumatatu became one of the resident choreographers of Susan Hess Modern Dance's Choreographers' Project (Philadelphia). His choreography has been featured at Swarthmore College, Temple University, as well as the Philadelphia Fringe!, GLUE, and New Edge Mix festival series. His choreography has also been commissioned by Danse4Nia, Prince Music Theater, and New Jersey Governor's School. Jumatatu also directs IdiosynCrazy Productions, a physical theater company he founded in 2008.

JOSIE SMITH has worked with Leah Stein for nearly twenty years. Since receiving her MFA in Dance from Temple University, she has had residencies at the Community Education Center and at Susan Hess Modern Dance where she produced over fifteen works including improvisational pieces, collaborations with composers and works based on her own text. In addition to showing her solo works in the Philadelphia area, her choreography has been produced in Chicago, Atlanta and New York City. Recently she has worked with Lisa Kraus and Brigitta Herrmann and had the opportunity to travel to Indonesia and Singapore to study Indonesian classical dance, where she experienced deep contrasts and moved slowly for extended periods of time. Josie is currently a Masters Degree student in Library Science at Drexel University focusing on dance archiving. She is involved in the practice of Authentic Movement, and paddles a whitewater canoe.

MICHELE TANTOCO is a dancer and movement educator living in Philadelphia. Since 2002, Michele has danced and performed with Leah Stein Dance Company. In 2006, she and three other Philadelphia dancers collaborated with London-based choreographer/teacher Sean Feldman in a new work which premiered at Swarthmore College. She has also had the honor of working with many Philadelphia-based choreographers such as Gabrielle Revlock, Meg Foley, Daniele Strawmyre, Nichole Canuso, Myra Bazell, Darla Stanley, Kate Watson-Wallance, and Charles Anderson.

LEE SHAPLEY began working with Leah Stein Dance Company upon return to Philadelphia in January 2005. He is a founding member of the New York based collaborative dance theater group, De Facto Dance since 2000 with whom he has danced, co-directed and done set design for works performed in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Connecticut. In addition to his work with Leah and De Facto, Lee has also worked with the Brian Brooks Moving Company, Mia Chiarrochi, JoAnna Mendl Shaw and many other independent choreographers based in New York. In addition to being a dancer and choreographer, Lee is a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique.

OLASE FREEMAN is a dancer/choreographer who performed with Headlong Dance Theater and Jane Comfort & Co. Olase is also co-artistic director of bkSOUL, an exercise in soul and form, with Grace Jun in San Diego. Olase remains beholdant to the information he acculmulated while working and performing with Marlies Yearby's Movin' Spirits Theater, The Richard Bull Dance Theater (choreographic improvisation), and Terry Creach's Creach/Dance. A partial list of additional choreographers and collaborators with whom Olase has had the opportunity to work includes Martha Bowers, Nicholas Leichter, Leslie Partridge, Wendy Perron, Lower Left Dance (San Diego). Heavily influenced by his friends and mentors, the late Cynthia Novack and Richard Bull, Olase continues his journey using spirals, rhythm and breath as tools to integrate disparate movement vocabularies (hiphop, contact improvisation, yoga, martial arts) into a release technique that is dynamic, organic and evolving. Olase's choreographic work, both as a co-director of bkSOUL and independently has been performed in such diverse venues as The Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Movement Research at Judson Church, Link's Hall (Chicago), the Cunningham Studio, Joyce/Soho, Dixon Place, Thelma Hill (Long Island University), as well as the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. As a teacher Olase has taught workshops and classes internationally at the Firkin Crane, Cork City, Ireland, Curitiba and Londrina, Brazil, Congresso Internacional de Danza a nivel Baja California, Mexico, and nationally via the DanceCenter at Columbia College (Chicago), Link's Hall, CalState San Marcos, Sushi Performance Inc. (San Diego), Mountlake Terrace Recreation Pavilion, (Seattle, WA).