PAULA JOSA-JONES, MA, CMA, RSME/T, is a choreographer, director and equestrian who has developed a unique form of visually charged dance-theater built on the sensuous experience of the body as landscape and source for movement, image and voice. Her work includes theatrical choreography for humans, her inter-species work with horses, dancers and riders, and work in film and video. "Josa-Jones can also be credited with enhancing the possibilities of dance video, since her work lends itself to the imagistic world of cross-fades, a kind of supernatural visual exposure, with dancers moving across frames as if entering alternate worlds or states of consciousness. Her work with video artists defies the axiom that dance does not translate into two-dimensional media." (International Dictionary of Modern Dance)

As the Artistic Director of Paula Josa-Jones/Performance Works, Josa-Jones has received two consecutive two-year Choreography Fellowships (1992-96) from the National Endowment for the Arts, and an Artist's Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. An NEA US/Mexico Cultural Exchange Fellowship and the US/Mexico Fund for Culture supported her choreographic work in Mexico. She is the recipient of two New Forms grants from the New England Foundation for the Arts and an Artists Foundation Fellowship in Interarts for her video dance collaborations with Vin Grabill. Paula Josa-Jones/Performance Works has received support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the New England Foundation for the Arts, the Arts Lottery, Creative Time, the Dakota Foundation, LEF Foundation, the Claneil Foundation, the Polaroid Foundation, and two grants from the Trust for Mutual Understanding for their work in Russia. Ms. Josa-Jones has received commissions from the Joyce Theater, Jacob's Pillow, Dance Umbrella, Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, and nuArts at Northeastern University. Her work has been produced in Russia, Europe and Mexico as well as throughout the United States.

After a decade of creating theatrical works for humans, in 1998, Paula returned to riding and her childhood love of horses, and created an inter-species company with horses, dancers and riders. She has devoted herself to the study of dressage and areas of horse training and care including TTouch and Clicker Training. In 2001 she premiered RIDE©, a groundbreaking work of equestrian dance theater, which is now in development as an international performance event. Paula is currently writing two books on horses and art: Pony Dances, a collaboration with photographer Jeff Anderson, and Horse Play©: Practices for the Love of the Horse. Paula teaches fitness for riders, as well as competing and performing with her Andalusians, Amadeo and Capprichio, the stallion formerly owned by Sabine Schut-Kery.

Paula is a certified Laban Movement Analyst, a registered Somatic Movement Therapist/Educator and Tellington TTEAM Practitioner. She includes in her teaching Body-Mind Centering (BMC), Authentic Movement, Pilates and Yoga. She has taught in the dance programs at Tufts University, Boston University and at universities, colleges and dance festivals nationally and internationally. Her writings on movement and dance have been published in Contact Quarterly. Paula teaches an embodied and intuitive approach to the human-horse bond through dance, improvisation, touch and somatics.