Jo Blowers

United States
For over twenty years Jo has worked extensively as an Improviser, Performer, Choreographer, Movement/ Director and Teacher. She trained principally at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance in London and has attended, and also been part of organizing numerous national and international open and professional level classes, workshops and conferences. She has specialized in improvisation including Contact Improvisation, which she has taught and performed nationally and internationally; working with a very wide range of influential CI practitioners including the innovators of the form; most notably Steve Paxton (with whom she has performed) and Nancy Stark Smith.  Jo is a founder member of the Liverpool Improvisation Collective (LIC) alongside Mary Prestidge, Paula Hampson and Andrea Buckley who were the organizers of the Liverpool International Festival of Dance Improvisation (LIFDI) which included a wide range of nationally and internationally renowned artists. She has also participated in and been responsible for facilitating and organizational work for (ECITE) in a range of European venues. She has worked extensively in the UK in the context of further and Higher Education. Her last post was as head of movement on the Acting route at the Liverpool Institute for the performing Arts (LIPA). She has sustained a particular interest in working with cross art form practitioners and has collaborated with numerous other artists across a wide range of disciplines and genre.