Perhaps the most influential improv artist of her generation, RUTH ZAPORAH is a performer and director known internationally for her innovative work in physical theater improvisation training. Zaporah is the creator of Action Theater, an improvisational performance skill training process that is used in dance and theater institutes all over the world. She is a two-time recipient of National Endowment Choreography Fellowships and in 1994 was honored with a Sustained Achievement award by the San Francisco Bay Area Dance Association. She has served as a Cultural Envoy for the U.S. State Department. Zaporah spends much of her time on tour, performing and leading trainings both in the U.S. and abroad in Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, England, Australia, China, and Israel. She has a special interest in performing for unconventional audiences: in 1994, she performed in theaters and refugee camps in Serbia and Croatia during the Yugoslav wars, followed by special performances in 2000 in Kosovo and Sarajevo. Her articles on improvisation have been regularly published in Contact Quarterly, a magazine for new dance forms, and she is a contributor to Shambala Publications's anthology Being Bodies: Buddhist Women on the Paradox of Embodiment.