Manfred Fischbeck, Artistic and Executive Director of Group Motion, is a choreographer, composer, director, and teacher, with a background in theater, film, and writing. Manfred has been awarded numerous grants and fellowships for his substantial work in dance, multi-media and interactive technology, and interdisciplinary collaborations with artists worldwide including the National Endowment for the Arts and new work commissions from Dance Advance, a program of the Pew Charitable Trusts. He tours extensively, both solo and with the Group Motion Company, in the United States, Europe, Asia, and South America and serves on the faculty of the University of the Arts as Adjunct Professor of Dance, lecturing regularly as part of the Theater Arts Department of the University of Pennsylvania. He has served on the Dance Panel of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Board of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, and the Board of the Philadelphia Dance Alliance. He and Brigitta Herrmann are founders of the Group Motion Workshop, an improvisational dance workshop for the public based on the structures used by the dance company. In 1996, Manfred was instrumental in establishing the model dance company collective, the Kumquat Dance Center.