ABOUT THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

​I started dancing when I was four years old at Palm Beach Ballet Center in Palm Beach, FL, under the direction of Joan Miller. Thirty-five years later, I still love my craft. I dance with that studio until I graduate high school. I was blessed to have an opportunity to go to A.W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach, FL as a dance major. So I danced during school and after school. During my summers in High School, I would spend my entire summer going to New York City to train with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s summer intensive. My senior year, they asked me to stay and continue training during the year. I decided to continue my collegiate journey at attending the University of Central Florida and obtained a BS in International Business. After I was done, I gave my degree to my parents and went back to my first love, DANCE.

 

Over the next 15 years, I would perfect my craft in a different way. I started teaching at a phenomenal dance school, Orlando School of Cultural Dance, under the director of one of my dance mother’s Julie Coleman. I would teach at over 15 dance schools through Central Florida, finally making my way to Director of Dance at the Center For Contemporary Dance. It was there that I became the teacher and director I am today. Six years ago, I felt it was time to branch out again but this time as the Big Boss. In 2016 I opened my very own studio, Inez Patricia School of Dance, named after my deceased mother, who I wanted to pay homage to her for all of her sacrifice and investment into my passion. Fast forward six years later, we are a household name teaching over 500 students in the past six years and watching them graduate and go on to Professional Dance Companies and Collegiate Dance Programs. I’m one blessed dance teacher…5, 6, serval 8s.

 

--Jere’ James