Colleen Bartley has Dance and Education degree from Swarthmore College (1996) and a diploma in Community Dance from Laban (1999) and years of experience with Somatic Education (since 1994) worked directly with most of the founders of Contact Improvisation. She’s been influenced by teachers of contemporary and post-modern dance, experiential anatomy with Gary Carter and Caryn McHose, Authentic Movement with Susan Schell, Improvisation & Composition (Tuning Scores with Lisa Nelson, The Underscore with Nancy Stark Smith, Ensemble Thinking with Nina Martin) and is very active in dancing, organizing, writing about and documenting dance. She has an invisible disability which informs her practice as a teacher and an artist and the communities she engages with. She believes that its everyone’s birth right to move, that people are inherently creative, movement is our first language, and sees dance as a way to empower people, to effect social change and to build community.