Who I am.
Jessica Roseman (she/her) is a choreographer, interdisciplinary artist, and researcher exploring movement as a portal to memory, belonging, and embodied wellbeing. Rooted in lived experiences of mothering, loss, and the ongoing shifts of a maturing body, her work reveals unspoken stories of care, identity, and healing. Through solo performance and participatory practices, Jessica invites people to sense, feel, and move toward social change and a more richly embodied life.
She founded Nourish, an award-winning somatic practice and public art project offering restorative tools for personal and collective wellbeing. Designed as a 'soul care toolkit,' Nourish supports people in listening deeply to their bodies, rooting equitably into self, relationship, and place. Her 2024 MASS MoCA Residency Fellowship supported the development of an immersive Nourish installation, gently bridging gaps between public performance and personal experience, movement and visual art, and active dancer and so-called “passive” audience.
As a PhD student in Interdisciplinary Design and Media at Northeastern University, Jessica researches design strategies for embodied practices that can generate agency through the nervous system across artistic, public, and communal spaces. Integrating principles from the Feldenkrais® and GYROTONIC® Methods, along with her background as a licensed massage therapist, Jessica researches and designs accessible, body-centered practices for wellness and performance.
A New England States Touring Artist, she performs, teaches, mentors, and lectures nationally. She is Co-Curator for The Dance Complex’s annual programming, serves as a mentor for the Asian American Ballet Project and North American Choreographers Month (NACHMO) Boston, and advised Forecast Public Art’s Making it Public and The Dance Complex’s aMaSSiT programs for developing artists. She was appointed to NEFA’s Regional Dance Development Initiative (RDDI) cohort and has held residencies at Lexington Community Farm, Arrow Street Arts, Subcircle, Beanstow, and Atlantic Center for the Arts. Jessica has collaborated with organizations including Now + There, DeCordova Sculpture Park & Museum, ICA Boston, Global Arts Live, and Miami Light Project.
In 2025, Jessica’s writing on Nourish will be published in two forthcoming books. She lives on unceded Massachusett and Pawtucket land, known as Lexington, MA, with her twin teens.
What I do.
Sensing and expressing the right action for the moment is my process in my parenting, bodywork practice, my healing, and in choreographing. I’ve trained extensively in therapeutic massage and the Feldenkrais Method to pinpoint people’s structural and functional imbalances. I do the same in dance: I hone in and reveal the invisible tensions of our colonized culture.
I believe physical expression is universal. My dances aim to instill equality through movement. My newest project generates movement from interviews with non-dancers, Black mothers, to choreograph self care for racial justice. My dances acknowledge our senses. I’ve incorporated props like a mountain of wiggly Jell-o, and offered the audience cupcakes or smelling canisters to encourage sensory awareness as I performed. I create interactive experiences in nontraditional spaces (examples include my artist residency at a community farm, rehearsing over Zoom in bed, and improvising dances in public parks). I’ve choreographed with solo musicians, live DJ’s and jazz bands. I’ve improvised in dances about the Declaration of Independence, farting, and love.
Personally, choreographing is an act of defiance and self determination from the trauma I experienced when birthing my stillborn first child. During that time, I learned how to reclaim my life force by working through grief to re-embody creativity. When choreographing, I examine how emotions are stored within the body. I place my body into situations that demand a solution, then render clear forms out of what develops.
I’m excited and confounded by physical challenges, impossible dances, and embracing the awkward. I’m interested in how the body resonates to specific sound vibrations.
I’m inspired to make meaningful movement for my maturing body and to resource our inner well-being.