Embodied Creativity: Movement, Meaning, and Leading Through Art with Dana Genshaft

The Luminary Lens

Welcome to The Luminary Lens, where heart meets strategy and stories spark transformation. Host Rebecca Kaykas-Wolff—a corporate marketing leader, salon curator, and founder of the Luminary Society—sits down with Dana Genshaft, choreographer, educator, and Artistic Director of SF Danceworks.

In this layered and insightful conversation, Dana reflects on a lifetime shaped by motion—from early training at the Kirov Academy to dancing on the stages of San Francisco Ballet, and now leading one of the most forward-looking contemporary repertory companies in the country. She shares how dance serves as a language of connection, what it means to build culture with intention, and why investing in emerging artists is essential for the future of the arts.

Rebecca brings her signature style of intentional conversation to uncover how Dana’s approach to leadership blends discipline with empathy, structure with stretch, and vision with community.

In this episode:

• How Dana’s artistic lineage shaped her identity as a dancer and leader
• The difference between discipline and perfection in the creative process
• Why contemporary repertory dance matters—and how SF Danceworks is reimagining it
• The role of trust, play, and negotiation in artistic collaboration
• Building administrative and emotional infrastructure to support working artists
• What empathetic leadership looks like inside a values-driven arts organization
• Dreaming future collaborations across tech, architecture, and immersive experience

If you believe business and the arts need more curiosity, courage, and humanity, this conversation is just the beginning.

Join the conversation using #LuminaryLens. For upcoming performances and more, visit sfdanceworks.org.