Currently based in St. Paul, Minnesota, Jinza Thayer has worked with hundreds of clients in her Frogtown studio and virtually as a registered Somatic Movement Therapist and Movement Educator (ISMETA), healing bodies by helping people enjoy pain-free movement. Starting with her experience as a personal trainer 30 years ago and drawing upon 40 years of movement research within the dance field, she has come to understand how energetic connection, bodily alignment, and strength unite within the body. By using anatomical knowledge, movement re-patterning and hands-on approaches, the body can develop a strong aligned structure which promotes ease, grace, and vitality.

After spending her first six years in Japan, Jinza grew up in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated from Johns Hopkins University and received an MFA in Dance at George Mason University. She is certified in the GYROTONIC® Expansion System, Global Somatics™, and Level 2 of the Franklin Method. Jinza has integrated her movement modalities and ongoing bodywork practice into 30 years of teaching at Zenon Dance School and into her choreography as artistic director of Movement Architecture (MA).

She has also been a guest lecturer for the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO), ISMETA, and California Dance Education Association (CDEA), as well as a guest instructor at Carleton College, St. Cloud University, George Mason University, University of Minnesota, Gustavus Adolphus College, among others.