On the stage and in the street, around campfires, in church, and for celebrations, Jenna Woods has been dancing since 1973. She is known for subtlety and precision, playful soulful expression and her love of improvising with live music: she loves making the music visible, danciing on the very edge of the edge, in the moment.

Jenna's work, OYNA Tribe, is rooted in the performing and spiritual traditions of the Middle East and integrated with fluid biomechanics. She is professionally trained as an Aston-Patterning movement specialist and bodyworker, able to see the subtle interplay of movements in the body and guide her students into awareness, strength, coordination and technical ease. She has sung and played instruments since childhood, and has been involved in music, movement, healing and spiritual arts all her life. Trained in Sufi teaching methods since 1979, she incorporates practices that clear the mind and involve the heart, so that her students can play music and dance in freedom.

Since 1976, Jenna has performed and taught in Texas and New Mexico as well as Colorado, and occasionally in the Society for Creative Anachronism in her personna of Jenna al-Ghazaliyya. She spent two years performing with the Middle Eastern/Flamenco fusion group Ojaleo, dancing, singing and playing percussion. She has recorded zillwork on the Lights-On Productions release, Eyes Behind the Veil with Billy Woods and Daveed Korup, and also on Ojaleo from Rhythm Muse Records.

She began focusing on zillwork with dance in 1987, and originally developed the practice sequences for the Nur Method to deepen her own practice. She expands it to help others learn more easily how to play zills with more skill and freedom at every level, with improved coordination and interaction with other musicians. She founded Zillfest in 2002, and has spent the last six years writing, researching and interviewing for her book, The Dancing Cymbalist: How to play music with finger cymbals and dance at the same time. She lives and teaches in Boulder, CO, happy to be in a small city where she can walk down her street and go up into the mountains.