Sara Shelton Mann
Visiting Faculty
Sara Shelton Mann is an artist/collaborator who creates forms from interdisciplinary practices, including text, dance, dowsing, found objects, and questions.
Biography
Mann has been a choreographer, performer, teacher since 1967. She was a protégé of Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis in N.Y.C. before moving to Canada where she fell in love with contact improvisation. In 1979 she moved to San Francisco, CA and started the performance group Contraband, combining the principles of contact, systems of the body, and spiritual practice into a unified system of research. Among her awards are a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, 6 Isadora Duncan Awards, Djerassi Artist in Residence Awards, Headlands Center for the Arts Residency (2016), Lifetime Achievement Bay Guardian Award, 10 Women Who Made a Difference, and Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award (2016). Mann has practiced dowsing as a healing modality since 2010, is a Master NLP practitioner, and has a Master Certification in Intuition Medicine®. Her publications include a pedagogical manual entitled Moving Alchemy (2024), Erasing Time Photo Book (2021), Frog Hunting (2016), and articles “skeletal walking” in Paper Pieces (2022), “Sara Shelton Mann: In the Presence of Action” in Contact Quarterly (2018), and “Write the Article – Why Bother? Why Continue?” in Contact Quarterly (2000). Mann's Movement Alchemy training is an ongoing teaching project and is influenced by certifications and studies in the metaphysical and healing traditions over many years. Her performance work is a platform for collaboration and research in consciousness.
Mann is a visiting faculty member in the Low-Residency MFA in Dance program at Bennington for Summer 2026.
Photo credit: Barbara Dietl