about Jess

Jess Humphrey (MFA, CLMA, RSMT) is a dance artist and educator. Her movement research began in childhood with competitive gymnastics and continues today with dancemaking from various, shifting perspectives and states of body~mind. Her dances are expressions of her engagement in contemplative and somatic practices, Integral Theory, and reverence for those within whose lineages she moves.

She has an MFA in Modern Dance with a focus on contact improvisation and creative process from the University of Utah and a BFA in Dance from California State University, Long Beach.

An intensive study with Deborah Hay in 2009 changed her life and continues to inspire her every move.

Her collaboration with Eric Geiger (UCSD) and Leslie Seiters (SDSU) spans a decade and multiple contexts including pause, a trio by Deborah Hay. She has shared in the creation of several evening-length dances as director, collaborator, and/or performer over the past eighteen years with other artists including Gabor Tompa, Sara Shelton Mann, Guillermo Gomez-Pena’s La Pocha NostraNugent Dance in Los Angeles, and Core Dance Theatre in Idaho, and LIVE.

Over a decade of practicing and performing spontaneous dancemaking with LIVE (Kris Apple, Emily Aust, Liam Clancy, Anya Cloud, Viktor De La Fuente, Ron Estes, Chloë Freeman, Eric Geiger, Zack King, Verónica Santiago Moniello, Justin Morrison, Blair Robert Nelson, Krista Kaye Nelson, Nhu Nguyen, Mary Peterson [previously Mary Reich], Karen Schaffman, Leslie Seiters, Yolande Snaith, and Aubrhe Yruretagoyena) continues to shape her work, and she remains engaged in that weekly practice in ways that are still very much aLIVE

She completed the Integrated Movement Studies (IMS℠) program and was certified as a Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analyst (CLMA) by Peggy Hackney and Janice Meaden in 2006 and is a Registered Somatic Movement Educator (RSME) with ISMETA (International Somatic Movement Education & Therapy Association). She is engaged in The School for Body-Mind Centering®’s SME (Somatic Movement Educator) program with primary teachers Amy Matthews and Mary Lou Seereiter at Moving Within in Lorane, Oregon. She has studied the Feldenkrais Method® with Seiters, Geiger, and Kristen Baum Wilcox and Alexander Technique with Marjean McKenna, Eileen Troberman, and Shelley Senter. In 2002, she was certified in Pilates with Karen Clippinger and Rael Isacowitz (Body Arts and Sciences, International) and has taught in dance, physical therapy, and fitness settings throughout the US.

She is a certified Integral Facilitator through Ten Directions with primary teacher, Diane Musho Hamilton.

Jess continues to learn by teaching in the Dance Program at San Diego State University, was co-facilitator and teacher at Practice: a dancing intensive in San Diego for two summers, and taught at the Winter Intensive for ADF. She has also enjoyed teaching and directing work with students at the University of California, San Diego, California State University, San Marcos, and MiraCosta College and co-facilitating the weekly Contact jam in San Diego at Stage 7 School of Dance with other members of the local Contact community.

Life As a Modern Dancer Blog posts:

Studio Time/Practice Time

Artist Profile #151