Leal Zielinksa was born and raised in Gdansk, Poland. She began her training with private ballet coaching from Bogna Ostapiuk, studied at Codarts Rotterdam Dance Academy and graduated from the Independent Program at The Ailey School in New York City in 2015. Upon graduation she spent three seasons working with Sidra Bell Dance New York, during which Dance Magazine named Leal as one of 25 to Watch “Breakout Stars of 2018” and was featured on the January 2018 cover. Leal attended Springboard Danse Montréal in 2016 where she worked with Bobbi Jene Smith, Alexandra Wells and performed works by Ohad Naharin and Elia Mrak. Off stage she has had the pleasure of being involved in multiple movement based film and video projects working with directors and choreographers such as Celia Rowlson-Hall and Jovan Todorovic. Represented by commercial talent agency blocNYC Leal has performed at the 2018 MTV VMA show, and appeared in national campaigns for GAP and Google. Leal joined Gibney Company in 2018, and has performed works by Shamel Pitts, Chanel DaSilva, Bobbi Jene Smith, Micaela Taylor, Stefanie Batten Bland and Peter Chu. Her continued advocacy work around mental health resulted in the founding of Okay, Let’s Unpack This, an effort to normalize the conversations necessary to destigmatize mental illness within the dance community.

https://www.okayokayokay.org

Melanie George is an educator, dramaturg, choreographer, scholar, and certified movement analyst. She is the founder of Jazz Is… Dance Project. A highly sought after teacher and choreographer of the neo-jazz aesthetic, her jazz choreography is regularly commissioned by colleges throughout the United States. Melanie has presented her research on jazz dance improvisation and pedagogy throughout the U.S., in Canada and Scotland, and founded the global jazz dance advocacy website jazzdancedirect.com. As a dramaturg, she works closely with internationally recognized contemporary performing artists in the incubation of new works for the stage. Melanie has contributed to projects by Kimberly Bartosik/daela, Raja Feather Kelly, Susan Marshall & Company, Urban Bush Women, Machine Dazzle, Kathy Westwater, Alice Sheppard/Kinetic Light, and David Neumann & Marcella Murray, among others. Current projects include new works by Helen Simoneau Danse, Caleb Teicher & Company, and Ephrat Asherie Dance. Publications include “Jazz Dance, Pop Culture, and the Music Video Era” in Jazz Dance: A History of the Roots and Branches and “Imbed/In Bed: Two Perspectives on Dance and Collaboration” in Working Together in Qualitative Research.. Melanie is a featured contributor to the upcoming documentary on the history of jazz dance, UpRooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance, and a contributing jazz dance scholar to the Jacob’s Pillow archives. Melanie has worked as a consultant in the arts for over a decade, applying her expertise in scholarship and education to assist artists and arts organizations in articulating language and facilitating the development of creative work. In addition to her work with independent choreographers and dance educators, Melanie has provided professional services for Jacob’s Pillow, The Joyce Theatre, The Guggenheim Museum, BAM, and Stephen Petronio Company, among others. 

https://melaniegeorge.org

Quilan "Cue" Arnold, MFA is a dance professional (dancer, choreographer, podcaster, producer, teacher) based out of Brooklyn, New York. He has been a member of companies such as Camille A. Brown and Dancers (NY), Rennie Harris Puremovement (PA), Abby Z and the New Utility (NY), and Enzo Celli Vivo Ballet (NY). Quilan’s work has been presented in a domestic and international milieu. His most recent choreographic series, “The Third Rail,” premiered at the 2018 INSITU Site-Specific Festival (NY), was presented in 2019 at Hunter College (NY) and the American Dance Festival (NC), and has been commissioned in 2020 for Brigham-Young University (UT). Quilan is the co-founder of the street dance podcast, “The Good Foot Podcast,” founder of the virtual Street/Club Dance Library, and executive director of the street dance documentary, “Build’N Shop,” which is partially funded by the 2018 Ohio State Dance Preservation Grant. As an educator Quilan currently serves as a faculty member at Hunter College, Peridance Capezio Center, Gibney Dance Center in New York City. Quilan also hosts an online hip-hop class, “Get Groovy.” Visiting artist credits include: Brigham-Young University; Bard College (NY); Towson University (MD); Ohio State University (OH); Rutgers University (NJ); University of Memphis (TN); and New York University (NY). Additionally, Quilan has served as faculty at Steps on Broadway (NY) and Mark Morris Dance Cente (NY).

Yo-Yo Lin (She/Her/Hers) is a Taiwanese-American, interdisciplinary artist who explores the possibilities for self-knowledge in the context of emerging, embodied technologies. She often uses video, animation, live performance, and sound to create meditative ‘memoryscapes.’ Her recent body of work reveals and re-values the complex realities of living with chronic illness. [Yo-Yo Lin Headshot]

Refusing the medicalization of the ‘crip’ body, she works towards and dreams of an equitable toolkit that serves as a communal site for holding space for illness. Thus far, this dream has manifested as an open-sourced journaling tool (Resilience Journal), a movement workshop series led by and for disabled movement artists (ROTATIONS), and an audiovisual dance performance (‘the walls of my room are curved’). Her practice often facilitates sites for community-centered abundance, developing into physical and virtual installations, workshops, accessible nightlife party spaces. She was a 2019 Artist in Residence at Eyebeam, a 2020 Artist in Residence at CultureHub, and a 2020 Open Call Recipient for The Shed. Yo-Yo has shown her work at South By Southwest, New York Film Festival, and the Allied Media Conference. She serves on the Accessibility Advisory Team at Movement Research.

https://www.yoyolin.com/