Jenny Rocha is a choreographer, dancer, costume designer and Artistic Director of Rocha Dance Theater, a Brooklyn-based dance company since 2001. She is also the Director of The Painted Ladies, a cabaret group that was admitted into the Burlesque Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. A first generation Portuguese-American from New Bedford, Massachusetts, Rocha attended Roger Williams University for Dance and Performance, where she graduated with an Outstanding Achievement in Dance Award. She then moved to New York City, where Jenny served as a member of Sean Curran Company, Heidi Latsky Dance and other freelance choreographers for 12 collective years. Her choreography has been presented by esteemed venues such as The Philadelphia Museum of Art,The Boston Center for the Arts, Danspace Project, La MaMa, Galapagos Art Space, and more. Rocha has received awards and residencies including The Puffin Foundation grant, Galapagos Art Space Residency from 2008-2014, Armitage Gone! Dance/MANA Contemporary Space Residency and CUNY Dance Initiative in 2015 and 2018. The US Embassy in Lisbon awarded her an Innovation Grant to perform her work Battledress in Azores, Portugal, as well as host educational workshops in September, 2018. Rocha’s choreography has received critical acclaim in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The Village Voice, among others. As a teaching artist, she has taught dance at universities and colleges nationwide, including Roger Williams University, Connecticut College, West Virginia University, and Lehman College. Rocha currently teaches choreography at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and serves on the guest faculty of Mark Morris Dance Center.
