Daphne Lowell is Professor of Dance and Movement Studies in the School of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies at Hampshire College, Chair of the Five College Dance Department, and Co-Director of Contemplative Dance. She incorporates dance, Authentic Movement and her interest in ritual and participatory arts into her undergraduate courses (Making Dances, Dance and Culture, Embodied Imagination and Contemplative Dance) and seminars for adult professionals. Her background includes degrees from Tufts University (B.A. cultural anthropology) and the University of Utah (M.F.A. modern dance), national tours dancing with the Bill Evans Dance Company, study of Authentic Movement with Janet Adler and Edith Sullwold in the Mary Starks Whitehouse Institute, Psychosynthesis with Dr. Thomas Yeomans, and Body-Mind Centering with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. She taught dance at Arizona State University, the University of Washington and Smith College before coming to Hampshire. Daphne’s Authentic Movement practice informs her choreography, her writing about Authentic Movement, and her Contemplative Dance solo performances. Her choreography on themes of women's bodies and lives has won awards including the MassMoves! Best of Massachusetts concert series, and the Gala concerts of the American College Dance Festivals. She has published several articles on Authentic Movement, including her Introduction to Authentic Movement which was published in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Body-Mind Disciplines (Rosen, 1999), the special Authentic Movement edition of Contact Quarterly (Vol. 27/2), and Volume II of Authentic Movement (Jessica Kingsley, forthcoming), in which her article on Authentic Movement as a form of ritual will also appear. The Contemplative Dance programs she teaches with Alton Wasson are nationally recognized (www.contemplativedance.org). Since 1985 they have taught professionals of all ages at sites throughout the country, including Omega Institute, Naropa, Common Boundary National Conferences, the Center for the Contemplative Mind in Society, and Hampshire College.