Kyra Lehman is a mother, embodiment coach, educator, director, and artistic director of Proximity Theatre Company. She has directed over 60 productions, performance-based workshops, and classes, and has created a rigorous performance vocabulary. Kyra implements movement-based curricula for 12–85 year olds that weave together self-study, creativity, and the human body. Kyra’s unique approach to teaching stems from a spinal surgery she had when she was 12 years old that left her paralyzed from the chest down. Through the process of regaining feeling in her body and re-learning to walk, Kyra has had the opportunity, first hand, to ask herself and many others “What in us remains alive even when we cannot feel our bodies?”
Jake Himovitz is a father, visual artist, production designer, and educator. His work emerges from an embodied practice of self-study, curiosity, and play. Jake grew up in Santa Barbara, California devising and performing theatre with Proximity Theatre Company before studying visual art at Savannah College of Art and Design where he earned a Bachelors Degree in Production Design. After working in rural New Mexico, NYC, Far West Texas, and Chicago as an artist and teacher Jake went on to earn his Masters Degree in Fine Art from Columbia College of Chicago. He currently works at Santa Barbara High School as the Technical Director of the theater department.
Jake is devoted to the work of guiding young people toward their own creativity and tuning them into the strange frequencies that emerge from their own individual creative processes.
