In the community

KPBS 2017 Gala

Choreography and Mentorship of SDSU Dance Majors

KPBS commissioned me to choreograph a dance with exemplary dance majors from SDSU's School of Music & Dance for their 2017 gala themed, "KPBS Celebrates the Arts." They asked for a piece showcasing the kind of daring, experimental dance that we are teaching in the Dance Division that would also be appropriate for a black-tie affair.

I worked with dance majors Nhu Nguyen and Tayler Hardie to create a work that was both elegant and dynamic. Our collaboration yielded a dance accompanied by a lovely Aria by Alessandro Scarlatti that honored both the formality of the event and the dramatic physicality that each of these young women had to offer.

Summer Undergraduate Research Program 2016

"Follow Us Here" for Jean Isaacs/San Diego Dance Theater's Trolley Dances

I was invited by Jean Isaacs/San Diego Dance Theater to create a site-specific dance for the 17th Annual Trolley Dances. With the support of SDSU’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program, this creative process served as both a laboratory for further articulating ways in which somatic practices can be used in dancemaking praxis and a context where I focused on fully inhabiting SDSU’s Teacher-Scholar model. I spent the summer in the studio and the fall at the San Diego Continuing Education Center’s César E. Chavez campus in Barrio Logan (the site assigned to us) with these student mentees developing material with and for an intergenerational cast (women ages 17-mid-70s) consisting of

  • SDSU Research Assistants: Dance Division undergraduates Aubrhe Yruretagoyena, Martha Brosnan (Provost's Award for her Student Research Symposium presentation), Laray Egea-Saez, and MA candidate in Theater Arts from The School of Theater, Television, and Film, Kimberly King (President's Award for her Student Research Symposium presentation).

  • SDSU Alumni: Chloë Freeman and Krista Nelson

  • SDSU Professor Emeritus: Pat Sandback

  • Senior Citizens from Jean Isaacs/San Diego Dance Theater’s “Aging Creatively” program: Kathryn Scheideggar and Sharon Hancock

  • Youth from transcenDANCE (a local non-profit organization that provides dance training and performance opportunities for underserved youth): Yesenia Ramirez, Ashley Hoover, and Dennya Galindo

This process gave students access to the most current discourses in dance and professional experience in both creating and performing site-sensitive dance. The process provided a context for current students to collaborate with alumni, emeritus faculty, and others in the San Diego community including two major, local dance organizations (Jean Isaacs/San Diego Dance Theater and transcenDANCE).

Thousands attended Trolley Dances, exposing the greater San Diego community to the kind of collaborative research in dancemaking that is happening in the Division of Dance at SDSU. Our dance, “Follow Us Here”, was very well received by patrons of all ages. Following is Janice Steinberg’s review in San Diego Story:

"On this year’s six-dance program, “Follow Us Here” and “Finding Center” are standouts in that regard. And a serendipitous match of dance and location occurs in the sleek, stylish “attempts to define.” In “Follow Us Here,” choreographed by Jess Humphrey, 14 women spread through the lobby of the San Diego Continuing Education Center César E. Chavez campus. In constantly morphing groups, they play off one another, speak or sing, and highlight architectural features of the airy lobby—for instance, a round platform beneath a stairway that becomes a stage. There’s no fixed point where the “performance” happens; viewers roam, focusing on a trio here, a solo dancer there. There’s an improvisational feel to this, and watching improvisation can be like watching grass grow. But Humphrey provides sufficient underlying structure to make the piece continually fascinating. And her multi-generational dream cast ranges from teenage members of TranscenDANCE to Patricia Sandback, who at somewhere north of 70 remains one of the most elegant movers in town."

TranscenDANCE artist, Yesenia Ramirez and I are interviewed in this video about the process and the site.

The review (above) is significant because it points to three threads within my research. The first is my attention to the accessibility of dances made through contemporary, experimental methods. It also points to the age diversity, an outgrowth of my commitment to dancer wellness and the role of somatic practices play in dancer longevity. Finally, this project is a manifestation of the integration of my professional work as a dancemaker with my teaching. Including students in my research in this context allowed me to step fully into the role of Teacher-Scholar.

Artistic Director: A Step Beyond

A non-profit providing dance education, tutoring, and family services to underserved youth.

In 2014, I served as Artistic Director for an organization called A Step Beyond in Escondido that was originally intended to be modeled after The Wooden Floor in Santa Ana, California, a highly successful program with a thirty-year track record and a $2 million dollar budget per year. I worked with former Board Member of TWF, and Executive Director and Founder of ASB, Frank Foster, in the months leading up to its opening.

This video features clips of A Step Beyond's first audition. I designed the process and mentored SDSU dance majors to teach as local dance artist, Anya Cloud, and I selected the first class of students.

My work as an educator with A Step Beyond included

  • Planning and executing Fall Into Dance, where we provided a week’s worth of dance instruction to approximately 1000 underserved youth in elementary schools in North County.

  • Learning the philosophies and procedures that made The Wooden Floor successful (including Arthur Chickering's 7 Vectors of Student Development integrated into the graphic, above), and translating them to A Step Beyond and its Board of Directors during a complex negotiation between the two organizations for the rights to use TWF’s model. See graphic, below.

  • Supporting recruitment and interviewing processes for staff, including hiring and training alumni from SDSU's dance department. ASB Teaching Artists Nhu Nguyen, Karla Navarro (Dance Manager) have studied and/or mentored with me.

  • Facilitating the dance portion of the auditions and selecting an inaugural class of 35 from approximately 140 children.

  • Working with web/graphic designer on the creation of website and promotional materials, including the tagline, "Dance. Learn. Live." which reflects the three pillars of support (dance, academics, social services) offered by the organization.

  • Planning and teaching initial dance classes.

ASB chart.pdf