Jess Ruhlin
Jess Ruhlin began her dance training in St. Louis, Missouri under the direction of Alexandra Zaharias. She attended high school at Interlochen Arts Academy on scholarship. She was one of the inaugural members of the Regional Dance America Honors Company, Midwest region, and was invited to perform at the International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi in 2003. In 2008, she earned a BA in Dance Pedagogy from Butler University with a double emphasis in ballet and jazz.. She has studied with Boston Ballet, School of American Ballet, The Juilliard School, The Rock School of Pennsylvania Ballet, Ballet Austin, and in St. Petersburg, Russia with ballet and character dance teachers from the Cantilena School and the Marinksy Ballet.
Jess danced professionally with the Louisville Ballet Company, St. Louis Ballet, Roxey Ballet, and with various contemporary companies in New York. She has been privileged to work with choreographers including Jessica Lang, Uri Sands, Val Caniparoli, Lila York, Adam Hougland, and Douglas Dunn. She has danced alongside New York City Ballet’s Wendy Whalen and as a backup dancer for Aretha Franklin and comedian Hannibal Burress. Her choreography has been set on professional and pre-professional companies internationally, and has been awarded grants through New York University, The Regional Arts Commission, the Missouri Arts Council, The Jubilation Fountain, and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
Jessica spent six years teaching dance and theater at the nationally-accredited C.O.C.A. in St. Louis, Missouri. She taught various outreach programs in over thirty private, public, and charter schools. She taught movement therapy classes in eating disorder clinics and at the Central Institute for the Deaf. She was named a teaching fellow with Arts Interchange and certified in The Kennedy Center’s, ‘Acting Right’ Curriculum led by Sean Layne. Her classes combined dance with math objectives for arts-integrated learning through Harvard’s Project Zero educational program.
Jess began teaching ballet classes for seniors in 2015 which led to movement research with Washington University’s Neuroscience Department focusing on brain damage reversal through exercise in cases of dementia. In 2016, Jessica was accepted with partial scholarship to New York University Steinhardt Dance Education Program, graduating in May 2018 with an Masters of Art for Teaching Dance in the Professions and was awarded a certificate for Outstanding Achievement in Graduate Dance Education. She was invited to Kampala, Uganda in August 2017 to teach ballet and repertoire at Queen Sylvia Nagginda Luswata’s dance school. She has studied, performed, and taught in Russia, Uganda, Spain, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, and Barbados.
She fulfilled a Research and Creative Project Grant in linguistics and body language through NYU Steinhardt. Jessica is certified in Vaganova Method, beginner through advanced levels, and is an ABT Certified Teacher in the ABT National Training Curriculum. In 2021, she was invited to present at the annual Mark Morris Dance Group’s annual Curriculum Slam, specializing in socially responsive excellence in the classroom. Jessica teaches ballet for Urban Assembly High School for the Performing Arts, in medical clinics specializing in dementia care, and is a teaching artist with American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet. She is part of a research team of neuroscientists with NYU Langone and Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute studying the effects of movement on the nervous system. She is type-one diabetic and is currently passionate about increasing self-acceptance and visibility to dancers with disabilities.
Jess is also an arts writer having founded the wordpress site Bodies Never Lie in 2010. Here she has interviewed dance stars from renowned companies such as Dance Theatre of Harlem, the Rockettes, and the Joffrey Ballet and reviewed dance, theater, film, and visual art exhibitions at establishments such as The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City Center, Film Forum, and the Park Avenue Armory.
