Margaret Paek (she/her) is a collaborative dance artist whose research engages in practices of curiosity, compassion, and rigorous play as methodologies of inclusion and ensemble making. As a mixed-race maker, former gymnast, mother, educator, performer, and community builder, she finds connection and inspiration in liminality. She has been a core member of Lower Left since 2000, and the group continues to provide her artistic foundation and growth. Margaret is also deeply influenced by relationships with contact improvisation, Ensemble Thinking, Alexander Technique, Barbara Dilley, Deborah Hay, Loren Kiyoshi Dempster, her family, and the collectives Resident Artists/Dancing Mamas, Uh Oh Trio, SetGO, and Dr. Shamell Bell’s Street Dance Activism. Her collaborative choreographic work has been presented in Germany, Hungary, Mexico, Switzerland, across the U.S., and in venues including the Whitney Museum Biennial 2012, Danspace at St. Mark’s Church, Judson Memorial Church (NYC), and Links Hall (Chicago). Margaret has been teaching movement for over thirty-five years and her practices of creating, performing, and teaching have always been interwoven. She has been on faculty at Movement Research, University of the Arts, Marymount Manhattan and Manhattanville Colleges, and has taught at festivals in Budapest, Berlin, Freiburg, and Stockholm. In 2015, Margaret moved from NYC to the ancestral homelands of the Menominee and Ho-Chunk people (Appleton, Wisconsin) to teach at Lawrence University where she co-created and co-directs the minor and interdisciplinary area “Dance: Embodied Collaborative Practice.” She has authored articles for Contact Quarterly and learningtoloveDANCEmore and is on the board of Marfa Live Arts, Lower Left Legacy Project, and Renaissance School for the Arts. Margaret received her M.F.A. from Hollins University/ADF. Currently, she collaborates with Lower Left organizing and facilitating the Ensemble Thinking™ Certification program, is working with Resident Artist on a film documenting their working process over the last 15 years, and continues to develop a new performance work with Uh Oh Trio.