Rachel Kantra Beal is a professional dancer, choreographer and teaching artist. Rachel has been a part of the Dancefusion company since 2006, performing the works of Mary Anthony, Pauline Koner, Anna Solokow and José Limón, among others. Rachel has also worked with Enchantment Theater Company, creating live theater for children and their families. Rachel teaches throughout the Philadelphia area and is on faculty at The Gwendolyn Bye Dance Center, Koresh School of Dance, The University of the Arts and with the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Dance Company, where she was recently appointed Artistic Director. Rachel also serves as Director of Dancefusion’s fusion2, a training company for young dancers. Rachel’s studies have taken her as far as Tel Aviv, where she developed English language curricula and taught English to Israeli school children in the fall of 2010. Rachel is also a Registered Yoga Teacher, holding certifications in Vinyasa and Yin Yoga, and Thai Yoga Massage. Rachel continues to explore somatic movement as an expressive and restorative modality, looking for connections between movement patterns, emotions and psychological functioning. Through her own practice and teaching, Rachel continues to discover and develop new ways to better understand, strengthen, and rehabilitate the body. When she is not dancing or yoga-ing she can be found working alongside Philadelphia photographer JJ Tiziou. She is the recipient of a National Foundation for Advancement of the Arts award in Writing/Poetry as well as the Sylvia Caplan Memorial Award for Poetry from The University of the Arts.