Jennifer Fisher is an associate professor in the dance department of the University of California, Irvine Jennifer Fisher and the author of the prize-winning Nutcracker Nation: How an Old World Ballet Became a Christmas Tradition in the New World (2003,Yale University Press). She has contributed dance writing to a number of scholarly publications, as well as the Los Angeles Times. Anthony Shay is the founding artistic director and choreographer of the AMAN Folk Ensemble and the AVAZ International Dance Theatre, dance companies that specialized in world dance. He received numerous choreographic fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, James Irvine Foundation, and the California Arts council. He currently teaches at Pomona College.