Born in Denver, Colorado, Nkara grew up in Northern California. As an undergraduate at U.C. Berkeley, she was invited to do research with an award-winning chemist who taught her to delve deeply into inquiry and to listen intently to nature's intelligence. After earning a master's degree in biophysics from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden and while working on her a Ph.D. in neurobiophysics at Berkeley, Nkara discovered that the mysteries of mind and memory evaded microscopes. For their secrets, she turned to the arts of body and dream, plumbing visceral truths and politic as they arise through improvisation. After two years of arguing social philosophy and the theater of politics as a radio producer for former California Governor Jerry Brown, Nkara found that bodywork, the culinary arts and intensive meditation practice were central to her exploration into the unspoken. She wrote and performed solo pieces such as Shatterlines, Pillow and Going On, treating the repercussions of sexual abuse and denial. Combining this internal inquiry with social engagement, she participated on the board and designed the San Francisco 2002 V-Day Soiree in conjunction with Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues. At Burning Man, Nkara danced in Pepe Ozan's operas and sculptor Dana Albany's Bone Tree. She created films for live performances which employ dance and recycled footage to navigate environmental assault and the cyclic dynamics of war-creation. Nkara is president of Nkara Films.

DOWNPOUR RESURFACING screened at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and won Best Experimental Film at the New Jersey International Film Festival. Nkara was also awarded Most Promising Filmmaker and the No Violence Award at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. She has started work for a new film that follows a woman who was conceived before Roe v. Wade, put up for adoption and later finds her real family. This new work explores family blood ties and scrambled identity through a comic-ironic collage of archival footage and documentary-style fictional scenes.

Robert K. Hall, M.D.
Spoken Words

Dr. Hall is a poet, a psychiatrist of the body/mind and a meditation teacher. A pioneer in the integration of bodywork, psychotherapy and spiritual practice, he is co-founder of the Lomi School and Lomi Community Clinic in Santa Rosa, California. He teaches in the United States, Mexico, Europe and South America. The Lomi School and Counseling Clinic are well known in the U.S. and in Europe for training psychologists interested in developing skills in body-based and meditation-related therapy. Dr. Hall still teaches at the School and travels internationally to offer workshops and training in Lomi work. Dr. Hall has also been a teacher of meditation and has led meditation retreats since 1980. He is currently on the Teachers Council of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Woodacre, California, a Buddhist meditation center offering residential silent meditation retreats. He is a beloved teacher to thousands and a mentor to hundreds of students.

Dr. Hall is also a published poet and performer. His book of poems Out of Nowhere was released in 2000 by Running Wolf Press. He has given numerous public readings of his work, and he has performed three spoken-word and music concerts with musicians. He has released What a Mystery in collaboration with musicians, Brian Hand and Teja Bell.