Zena has been involved in performance for 30 years – as a writer/poet performer, educator and creative project developer.
As a poet Zena’s writing for performance explores the creative voice immersed in issues exploring collective and personal evolution in the midst of social injustice and the ecological crisis. Her music collaborations have included composer and guitarist, Femi Temowo, saxophonist and historian Soweto Kinch, musician and anthropological musicologist, Pops Mohamed. She supported Hugh Masekela and Larry Willis as part of the London Jazz Festival and collaborated with World musician and activist, Babaa Maal for Africa Utopia.
Since 2005 she has been exploring movement and the concept of ‘the body is the ear’.
Her writing and performance pedagogy is currently exploring the connection to the body, the imagination and the earth. Somatics and the natural environment is now a crucial writing stimulus for all her new work.
Her most recent project, Nature Persists, is exploring this work more thoroughly.