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J9 (she/her), aka Janine Micheletti, is a native New Yorker, a Hip-Hop dancer, and a street fusion choreographer. Her dancing credits include Madonna, 070 Shake, "The Devouring" in Times Square, Spotify, Mountain Dew, Comedy Central and more. She graduated from SUNY Purchase’s School of Art and Design with a concentration in photography. Thereafter, she has spent most of her professional life as a visual artist and accomplished textile designer....Read more
J9 (she/her), aka Janine Micheletti, is a native New Yorker, a Hip-Hop dancer, and a street fusion choreographer. Her dancing credits include Madonna, 070 Shake, "The Devouring" in Times Square, Spotify, Mountain Dew, Comedy Central and more. She graduated from SUNY Purchase’s School of Art and Design with a concentration in photography. Thereafter, she has spent most of her professional life as a visual artist and accomplished textile designer. In 2009, she began taking dance classes again as a hobby. The art form quickly enraptured her as it did as a child, and since she has pursued it with fierce abandon. This dedication has led her to being selected for the Breaking Glass: an emerging female choreographers program run by Ellenore Scott. This allowed her a mentorship with the esteemed Rhapsody James.
Since then, J9 founded J9Dance, a company focusing on Street Jazz and a fusion of Street Styles. It aims to showcase women in a strong aspect through these styes. She has shown her work throughout New York City, and has choreographed for artists Shenna, Calvin Play, Noia, and Dominic Sen’s album tour. Besides her Commercial work, she is deeply invested in the culture that New York has to offer in terms of Street Styles. This has led her to be immersed in the community and has expanded her dance knowledge ten fold. She has been lucky enough to gain work as a House Dancer, Popper, and Waacker in addition to the Street Jazz and Hip-Hop. She continues her studies in this, and feels like she will always be working for more dance knowledge because she believes dance is freedom. She is a collaborator with Mozaik Dance, a concert dance trio, including herself, Sun Kim, and Manon Bal. The company focuses on storytelling through Experimental Popping, Contemporary, and various other Street Styles. They have performed at Jacob’s Pillow, Mark Morris, and San Francisco Hip-Hop Festival, and will be performing at the New Victory Theater in Times Square for Summer 2020.
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The class begins with a well rounded warm up, beginning with grooves related to the foundation you will be learning. This serves as a way to warm the body and dive right into the material, allowing your body to follow before thinking too much about the movement. Then we concentrate on isolation down the chain of the body, including the isolation necessary to produce a wave. After this, we head to the floor to do a footwork drill, also serving to strengthen the body as well as give the student more material to play with. Warmup is concluded with a stretch.
After warm up, about 10-15 minutes is spent delving further into the material that was encountered in warm up. Sometimes J9 uses a freestyle circle to do that or will have students go across the floor. The main focus here is to have a discussion (whether physical or verbal) about what the foundation entails and where it is derived from.
This all leads into the combination, this will help students put steps into a sequential format and they can enjoy dancing to a routine at the end of class.
J9’s Street Jazz class begins with a warm up of grooves related to the choreography, isolations, strength and stretching. After a well rounded warm up, we will delve into the choreography. The choreography is built to help you retain choreography, understand fusion styles, and perform at the end. J9 will explain where movements derive from within the choreography and will focus on how to execute the moves stylistically and how to convey feeling through the steps. This class is designed ultimately to put your foundations into an arena where you can use them to perform choreography.
Children and Teens: Hip-Hop