Joanna Haigood is Artistic Director of Zaccho Dance Theatre based in Bayview Hunters Point, San Francisco.  Since 1980, she has been creating work that uses natural, architectural and cultural environments as points of departure for movement exploration and narrative. Her stages have included grain terminals, a clock tower, the pope’s palace, military forts, and a mile of urban neighborhood streets in the South Bronx. Her work has been commissioned by many arts institutions, including Dancing in the Streets, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Walker Arts Center, the Exploratorium Museum, the National Black Arts Festival, and Festival d’Avignon. She has also been honored with theGuggenheim Fellowship, the Cal/Alpert Award in Dance, the US Artist Fellowship, four Isadora Duncan Awards and a New York Bessie Award and the Doris Duke Artist Award.  Joanna has had the privilege to mentor many extraordinary young artists internationally at the National École des Arts du Cirque in France, the Trinity Laban Con- servatoire of Music and Dance in England, Spelman College, the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University, the San Francisco Circus Center and at Zaccho Studio.