Sara Shelton Mann has been a choreographer, performer, and teacher since 1967. She was a protégé of Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis in New York City before moving to Canada where she fell in love with contact improvisation. In 1979 she moved to San Francisco 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, six Isadora Duncan Awards, Djerassi Artist in Residence Awards, a Headlands Center for the Arts Residency, the Lifetime Achievement Bay Guardian Award, a 10 Women who made a Difference recognition, a Bay Guardian Award, and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award. She has practiced dowsing as a healing modality since 2010, is a Master NLP practitioner, and has a Master Certification in Intuition Medicine. Her 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.
At MacDowell, Shelton Mann designed and created text for part two of L/are we dreaming (fire & ice), which will be premiered at Dock 11 in Berlin in 2026.
Portrait by Barbara Dietl
