Biography

Leslie Merrill Schmidt, MFA, is an interdisciplinary dance artist and Co-Director of the dance program at MSU Denver, and has worked as a dance educator for over 20 years. She is currently studying to become a certified teacher with Dance for PD (Parkinson's Disease) and is training with the Tamalpa Institute to become a registered Somatics Movement Educator and an Expressive Arts Educator. She enjoys facilitating community-based arts projects that engage participants in collective creative processes where they can connect and share their voices and stories through the language of the arts. She has performed extensively with a number of companies in Colorado and beyond. Leslie has created and produced several evening-length performances and has shared her academic, choreographic, interdisciplinary, and video work nationally and internationally.