Janna Meiring (she/her), is a queer movement-based artist, somatic educator, and group facilitator based in Indianapolis, IN, U.S. Her work is rooted in the rediscovery and deep inquiry of the body’s innate knowledge as a pathway to cultivating a compassionate and expressive responsiveness to the world. Janna is a Seeker to the tenth degree, and fully delights in the complex, complicated, interwoven human experience in all its layers from the deeply personal to the collective and universal.

Most influential in her work is her longtime study of Body Mind Centering® and Embodied Anatomy with Erika Berland and Wendell Beavers (NYU), Contemplative Dance and improvisation with Barbara Dilley (Merce Cunningham Dance Co, The Grand Union), and The Performative Self with Leeny Sack (The Performance Group, Kinetic Awareness). She holds an MFA in Contemporary Performance from Naropa University where she also studied Viewpoints, Grotowski-based acting technique and worked with members of the SITI Company, Roy Hart Theatre, and Tectonic Theatre Company.

For 20 years, Janna has continued to research and apply these practices to many artistic collaborations, develop and produce work as a solo artist, and showcase several short dances and experiments. Credits include Boulder International Fringe Festival, Denver Performance Research, Work/Space Denver, the LIDA Project, Flagrante Delectico of Greece, Wax Wing Inc./Daughter Vision, Giving Voice Productions. The Institute for Psychogeographic Adventure (IPA), Free Form Philly, Asimina Chremos, Nicole Bindler, Miryam Coppersmith, Annie Wilson and others.

Alongside artist work and teaching, she has maintained positions in the non-profit field as an administrator and organizational leader. 

From 2008-2010, she was the owner and artistic director of Eliot Street Collective, an arts and performance venue in Denver, Colorado, where she curated visual art and performance events, workshops, and classes for all ages. From 2016-2019 she served as a writer, editor and Education Committee chair at thINKingDANCE.net, based in Philadelphia, PA. She has also been a theatre and movement educator for K-6 and middle schools and served as the Education Coordinator where she coordinated after school programs, including hiring, training and supporting teaching artists. 

She currently works as the Operations and Communications Coordinator at the international Body-Mind Centering® Association. She serves on the Board of Directors at Indy Convergence and is part of the process of developing a collaborative board governance structure. 

In recent years, Janna became part of Get What You Need (GWYN) artist residency through Bodymeld New Dance Platform, later becoming one of the consortia of artists who further developed and continue to administer the program with Zornitsa Stoyanova, Keila Cordova and Kenwyn Samual, supporting 2-3 emerging artists per year.

Taking on a mentor role further attuned her passion and skill for supporting artists through their own process, finding their own voice, trusting their instincts, and honoring and advocating for their wellbeing. As a “Somatic Process Maven”—a term bestowed upon her by Annie Wilson for her project Always the Hour—she supports artists with identifying and applying methods of embodied presence into their practices, empowering artists to integrate the discoveries and transformation that come through their projects in either solo or collaborative work.

Along with contemplative arts, and experiential anatomy and movement, Janna loves to get geeky about ancestry, psychology, cultural mythology, personal cosmology, queer ecology, emergent strategy, collective governance strategies, green witchery, and about every possible inkling of mystery within existence.

She’s also dedicated to acting through the vestiges of hope and audacity created alongside anti-racist, anti-oppression, anti-capitalist, and trauma-informed frameworks. 

It is this unique blend that Janna brings to any space, seeking to mirror back the light and power we all carry, and our capacity to enact change through intentional, mutual care.