© Marisol Diaz 2011
JESSIE FLORES
Dancer, Choreographer and Teaching Artist, Jessie Flores creates work with influences from contemporary sources, including social dances from Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Peruvian and West African traditions, and martial arts like Qichong and Win Chung. All her work is infused with an urban, street style aesthetic honed in clubs and dance floors throughout NYC.
Jessie is a Hunter College graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Physical Education and a strong concentration in Modern Dance. She is also a NYC Physical Educator.
Jessie is part of Pepatian's dance theater collaboration BX-RATED: La Mezclatina Rising, Volume 1. A new collaborative dance theater project with Nadia Hallgren, La Bruja & Cynthia Paniagua, BX-RATED explores issues of first and second generation Latina identity in a coming together of powerful, unapologetic voices that speak through personal journeys and female realities in the tight rope between urban life and ancestry.
Previously, Flores co-founded Vestiges Dance Collective with Thania Acaron, and performed solo and group work in Puerto Rico for the Danzaqui Dance Festival. Vestiges also performed at Chez Bushwick through Brooklyn Arts Council FootNotes program, Dance Theater Workshop/DTW's DanceNow Raw Studio, and was produced in a shared evening at Soho Rep Theatre.
As part of Pepatiáns' Bronx Artist Spotlight series, her own work has been presented at BAAD!/The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, The Bronx Museum of Arts, Bowery Poetry Café, City Center Studios, The Living Room, Stuyvesant Cove Park Outdoor Festival Series, Lovinger Theater at Lehman College. She was also part of the 2006 Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival and was part of a creative residency at the Lexington Center for the Arts.
Jessie has danced for companies: Hunter College Dance Company, Arthur Aviles, Mariana Bekerman, Carmelle Danielle and Alicia Diaz and Matthew Thornton/Agua Dulce Dance Company and performed at: Inside/Out at Jacob's Pillow, Dance Theater Workshop Fresh Track Series, BAAD!/Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance, Joyce Soho, La Guardia Performing Arts Center, Saint Peters College Roy Irving Theatre, Rockaways Artist Alliance and Montreal's Casa del Popolo.
Flores has collaborated with artists Awilda Sterling-Duprey, Jane Gabriels, Antonio Ramos and Richard Rivera and performed at Latea Theatre, BRIC Studios, Puffin Room, Dixon Place, WAX/Williamsburg Art Nexus, Movement Research, Joe's Pub/DanceNow Dowtown Series, The Living Room, Galapagos and University Settlement, among others.