JESSICA FLORES
As an Atlanta native, Jessica learned her love for dance at a small interdisciplinary dance studio in Cartersville. During high school she transitioned to the Atlanta Ballet where she eventually danced in the second company for three years. While there, she performed work by various world-renowned artists including James Kudelka, Lila York, Bruce Wells, Michael Pink, and John McFall who featured her as a soloist in two world premieres. Jessica also studied modern dance and contemporary ballet with Alonzo King LINES Ballet’s summer program for two summers and later joined their BFA program for her sophomore year of college in 2010. While there she studied and practiced GYROTONIC® and GYROKINESIS®. This work deepened her understanding of modern dance, improvisation, and breath work. When she returned to Atlanta in 2011 to complete her BA in Rhetoric and Composition from Georgia State University she was able to integrate into the Atlanta dance scene once more.
Upon her return she danced with City Gate Dance Theater, Phase 1 Contemporary (later called “Gotta Dance Contemporary”), and again with Atlanta Ballet for the 2013/2014 season. She also appeared as a dancer in two music videos (“Floating Away” by India Shawn ft. James Fauntleroy and “City Shoes” by Victoria Canal) and one HBO feature film. While pursuing her degree she worked for Lululemon where she began to practice yoga on a consistent basis, and in 2017 she completed a 200-hour yoga teacher training program at Fish Tree Yoga in Pensacola, Florida. By that point Jessica had married the love of her life who had just joined the military. Because of his service they moved from Pensacola, Florida to Corpus Christi, Texas, and finally to Yuma, Arizona over the course of six years. In each location she continued to teach dance and yoga, performing as a guest artist in the Corpus Christi Ballet’s Nutcracker and choreographing for Texas A&M University Corpus Christi dance minors in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
Jessica’s teaching journey has been anything but linear, and she’s grateful for it. Over the past ten years she’s shared the studio with pre-professional ballerinas, adults who want to do something for themselves, young dancers discovering a “kick, ball, change” for the first time, and college-aged artists with one semester of formal dance training under their belts. She’s also undergone a metamorphosis as a person. Through all of the change and all of the different seasons she’s encountered, dance has always been there for her. Whether she’s in the studio or not, movement has held her, shaped her, and connected her to others and to herself. As a movement specialist it’s her desire to connect movers to the feeling of aliveness that dance offers everyone.
