Artistic Director Colleen Hendrick is an acclaimed performer, award-winning choreographer and accomplished dance instructor. Her teaching emphasizes students’ ability to express grace and power through their bodies, regardless of age and previous dance experience. Ms. Hendrick has served on staff at the University of Rochester, taught master classes at Hobart William Smith College, SUNY Brockport, and presented for the National Association of Physical Education and Dance. She was the movement director for the Children's School of Brighton, a teaching artist with the Aesthetic Education Institute, Young Audiences of Rochester and Wolf Trap Early Learning. Ms. Hendrick’s epic work of choreography, Days Swinging Home, received the Lillian Fairchild Award for artistic excellence.  As founder of Hendrick Dance Project, she danced four seasons at the Merce Cunningham Theater in Manhattan, shared a performance stage with Urban Bush Women, and danced in the e.e. cummings International Centennial Celebration. Ms. Hendrick holds a BA in choreography and performance and creative writing from the State University of New York. She also is a graduate of the Assisi Conferences and Seminars, a two-year program involving Jungian analysts, chaos theorists, dynamic systems theorists, and biologists in exploring the connections between matter and psyche. Ms. Hendrick is a member of the Princeton PEAR group, a global collaboration of artists and scientists engaged in research on the nature of consciousness.

Musical Director Blair Hornbuckle has brought the joy of jembe drumming to audiences and students for more than a decade. Along with Artistic Director Colleen Hendrick, he studied intensively in West Africa with Master Drummers M’baye Diagne, Anisha Hassan, Robin Hibert, Lansana Kouyate, Aliou Djouf, Landing Diatta, Michael Markus, Khalid Saleem, Mamadouba Camara, Pam Lord Camara, Mamady Keita, Famoudou Konate, Djeli Kany Diawara and Niatou Camara, Yalani Bangoura and M'Bemba Bangoura. Mr. Hornbuckle is fascinated by the precision and chaos inherent in playing West African music. His performance career highlights include opening for the Wailers, and playing to a crowd of 80,000 people at Woodstock ’99.