Manfred Fischbeck, Artistic and Executive Director of Group Motion, is a choreographer, composer, director, and teacher. He also draws on a background in theater, film, and writing.

Manfred has been awarded numerous grants and fellowships for his substantial work in dance, multi-media and interactive technology, and interdisciplinary collaborations with artists worldwide. This includes funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and regular commissions to create new works from Dance Advance, a program of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Manfred also tours extensively, both solo and with the Group Motion Company, in the United States, Europe, Asia, and South America.

Manfred has been a vital presence in the Philadelphia arts community since moving here from Germany in 1968. He has served on the faculty of the University of the Arts as Adjunct Professor of Dance since 1972 and has lectured regularly as part of the Theater Arts Department of the University of Pennsylvania since 1982. He has served on the Dance Panel of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Board of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, and the Board of the Philadelphia Dance Alliance.

He and Brigitta Herrmann also created the Group Motion Workshop, an improvisational dance workshop for the public based on the structures used by the dance company. The workshop has been offered every Friday night in Philadelphia since 1972 and is also offered on tour and in special week-long retreats. In 1996, Manfred was instrumental in establishing the model dance company collective, the Kumquat Dance Center.