Zena Bibler is an artist, scholar, and current Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of Iowa. As a choreographer, she lives for the sense of possibility that only performance can bring—even when the performance is only for a few people and some trees. She is thrilled by the impending threat of failure that is inherent to live performance. So much could go wrong—and yet, here we are, attempting something that is ultimately about connecting. Her dances are incantations, rituals, and games. They are altars of mundane mutation that sometimes feel like magic. She imagines them as structures that invite performers to live inside for a while and, briefly, experience ways of listening and responding to each other that are uncommon in our busy lives. 

Her dances and interdisciplinary performance projects have been presented domestically and internationally at venues such as Pieter Performance Space, HomeLA, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Lion’s Jaw Festival, NADA Hudson, Lublin International Dance Theatres Festival (Poland), Museum Perron Oost (The Netherlands), Cairo Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (Egypt), and SESC Villa Mariana (Brazil). Her approach to moving and making has been shaped collaborations with Katie Baer Schetlick, Darrian O’Reilly, Brandin Steffensen, and Athena Kokoronis. She has also been shaped by her work as a performer for Steve Paxton, Jeanine Durning, Jack Gray, Willi Doerner, Levi Gonzalez, devika wickremesinghe, and Anne Zuerner.