I AM

…a movement artist of African descent, currently residing in the Pacific Northwest. My southern roots are intertwined with my holistic being and often push up against unfamiliar surroundings. I long for taste, texture, and truth in the spaces I occupy. My dancing is grounded in styles of modern and reaches fullness in the movement of the Diaspora. I’m interested in the ability to savor; filling my palette with small explosions of taking up space, grooving as the undercurrent, narrating with gestures, and flirting with joy. I find purpose as a vessel for my ancestors, a body to illustrate their stories, lessons, and values.

While I have trained in the languages of ballet, modern, jazz, improvisation, and western somatic practices, my dearest teachers are my origin, my family, my life experiences, and the gift that is Black culture. In my institutional interactions, there is little designated space for Blackness so I use my dancing/my being to construct a path. I feel that my work challenges proximity and comfort. I implore audience participation, reflection and offering. I am on a mission for honest exchange. Dialogue, touch, and eyes wide open seeing. I am on a mission to heal. Myself, Black bodies, and bodies with the awareness that pain and oppression should have an expiration date.

This Black body is always learning and unlearning, and the movement follows. I am learning to get bigger when oppressive forces require me to shrink. I am learning to lean on my village when society calls for individualism. I am learning to rest in the face of capitalism. In a body that only knew how to shield, fight, and reload, I am unlearning and have reprioritized my function and self worth. Today, I move more selfishly. My dancing is two helpings of mac and cheese, with a fried piece of dark meat, and extra collard greens. It is seasoned to my liking, though I invite others to share and enjoy.

My superpower is connecting. People to people. Past to present. I can bend time and space within my Black dancing body and tell you a familiar story. In my duties and responsibilities, I represent the manifestation of experiences that do not seem possible. I work to expose and educate young Black bodies so that they may also acknowledge and celebrate their powers, to go above and beyond the expectations of white supremacy. I am an artist, an educator, a nurturer, a Black woman on the ever evolving path towards liberation.

Research & Teaching

As an arts educator and researcher, I create classroom and studio spaces that support students in developing their creative voice and cultivating a deep sense of agency. My teaching is grounded in trust, collaboration, and care — centering the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of each student. Together, we build an environment where deep listening, risk-taking, problem-solving, and self-reflection can thrive. I believe that movement is a powerful tool for meaning-making, and I guide students in using both verbal and physical language to explore their identities, stories, and values.

My pedagogy and research are deeply rooted in Black feminist thought and womanist theory, which affirm identity, community, and liberation as interconnected forces. These frameworks prioritize self-definition, self-valuation, and moral agency — all of which influence how I move through the world as a Black woman, educator, and artist. I draw inspiration from thinkers and practitioners like bell hooks, Zora Neale Hurston, Adrienne Maree Brown, and Rev. angel Kyodo Williams, who teach that healing, love, and justice are core to personal and collective transformation.

In practice, I open each class with intentional check-ins and dialogue. We sit in a circle, listen to one another, and let the energy of the room guide our movement practice. My training in a wide range of forms — Improvisation, Afro Modern, Ballet, Jazz, Hip Hop, House, West African, Classical Modern, and Somatics — gives me the tools to support students in connecting breath, rhythm, and narrative to their lived experiences. I invite students to explore Africanist and African American aesthetics through elements like call-and-response, play, and communal engagement, fostering both individual expression and a strong sense of shared creativity.

My choreographic and academic research asks questions about identity, liberation, and the expectations placed on Black bodies in performance. I explore how womanist and queer theoretical approaches — including deconstruction, abstraction, and improvisation — can offer tools for reclaiming one’s self and resisting dominant narratives. I situate my work in the tension between connection and resistance, spirituality and secularization, and selfhood and social expectation. My inquiry is both personal and political — a form of self-love and resistance that reimagines what freedom and healing can look like through the body.

Ultimately, my work — in the classroom, on stage, and in scholarship — seeks honest exchange, embodied truth-telling, and space for students and communities to show up fully. I am committed to fostering environments where creativity is a means for personal and social transformation, and where the act of moving is also an act of reclaiming, remembering, and imagining new futures.

Send inquiries to bertramjessica17@gmail.com for classes, workshops, and guest teaching residencies.