About Miranda Janeschild:

Artistic director, choreographer, teacher and dancer, Miranda Janeschild founded Mir & A Company in April 2002, in Santa Cruz, California.  Celebrating their eighth year, Miranda Janeschild has produced and directed six major theatrical dance performances: Hands Left Behind -- 2008, A Crack in The Mask--2007, Place of No Escape--2005, Weaving One Peace at a Time—2004, Broken Wings Take Me Home—2003 and Caught in a Thread—2002. Mir & A Company has established a legacy that breaks the boundaries of conventional dance performances in Santa Cruz.

Besides producing yearly events, Miranda celebrates over 25 years helping others discover their body in motion as well as teaching in academic and medical environments.   She  has studied with Frey Faust since 2001, founder of Axis Syllabus (AS), and became certified to teach AS in 2004.  Miranda holds a Bachelors and Masters of Science in Occupational Therapy and has worked as a pediatric Occupational Therapist for 20 years.  She currently serves infants through Santa Cruz County Office of Education.  She is Feldenkrais ® Guild Certified Practitioner and works at North Bay Physical Therapy in Capitola serving orthopedic & neurological challenges as well as pain and high performance athletes, which include: a surfer, martial artist or gymnast.  Miranda spans the ability to work with a person from a traumatic brain injury, to a child with special learning &/or movement challenges as well as those dancing in the air or on the floor.  

Miranda hosts international artists to teach and present their work and provides a means for emerging artists to present their art professionally.  Through Mir & A Company's artistic endeavors, Miranda has done work in Santa Cruz County with incarcerated youth and those at risk who attend alternative high schools. Artistic projects for the youth have included: aerial, hip-hop and acrobatic dance and performance arts classes.  Miranda always provides sponsorship and discount programs for low income to attend classes, productions, and demonstrations.

Miranda’s study in aerial dance began with Jo Kreiter of Flyaway Productions (www.flyawayproductions.com) in 2001. She continues to study with Frey Faust, the founder of Axis Syllabus in both Europe and North America (www.axissyllabuscom).  Since 1977 Miranda has studied contact improvisation dance extensively with Nita Little and Steve Paxton.  She is deeply rooted in performance ritual theater as created by Shekhinah Mountainwater from 1982 to 1991 (www.shekhinah.net).  Her training in the 70's & 80's included theater, gymnastic competition, circus skills, pantomime and conventional modern dance.  She maintains an advanced Iyengar yoga practice with Kofi Busia, Master Iyengar Yoga Instructor.  Miranda works with people of all ages, abilities and challenges to heighten their sense of being as a mover, removing harmful movement patterns and developing greater movement options and skills whether in the air or on the ground.  For all those who cross her path, her special love is to empower curiosity and creativity while learning movement.

Jenna Garcia Conners:

Jenna has dreamed of dancing since she was a child, when she would make up “routines” with the neighborhood girls and they would perform for their families.   With this love of dance came a deep interest in health and movement analysis.  In the past two years, Jenna has dived into the depths or aerial dance and Axis Syllabus.  She has traiined with Frey Faust and is a teacher candidate in the teachers training program for Axis Syllabus.  Jenna is an outdoor enthusiast, mountain climber, wind surfer, and gardener.  She is a local Watsu and Waterdance therapist whose 8 years of private practice here in Santa Cruz has contributed to her ongoing study of the body in motion.  A self taught yogini at the age of 16, Jenna was the first to bring yoga classes to Benicia, California.  At 17, she began a 13 year stretch of teaching aerobics as a way of sharing movement and dance.   Now, at the age of 33, Jenna performs in “A Crack in the Mask” as her debut  of a dream come true. true.

René Soulier