Rochelle Jamila is a Brooklyn based multidisciplinary performing artist, dancer, folk herbalist, shapeshifter, and womb/ birth worker hailing from Oka Nashoba or Memphis, Tennessee. Rochelle’s choreographic practice imagines liberation through Nature’s cycles, folk arts of the African diaspora, and the physical and psychic realms of women and bleeding people. She is particularly inspired by the cultures of the deep South and the Mississippi Delta. Rochelle’s work has been presented in Tennessee, New York, the Netherlands, and at venues such as Movement Research at the Judson Church, Snug Harbor Botanical Garden, Triskelion Arts, The Buckman Theater, University of Amsterdam, and Harriet’s Gun Dance Film Festival. Rochelle was a 2021 Laundromat Project Create Change Resident, a 2023 EarthDance Resident, 2024 Resident at A Studio in the Woods, and a recipient of the Brooklyn Arts Council 2024 Creative Equations Cultural Heritage & Dance Fund to support her upcoming work Once We Were Free. Rochelle has notably performed for Ebony Noelle Golden, Ogemdi Ude, Adia Whitaker, Jasmine Hearn, Ambika Raina, Beth Gill, Maria Bauman among others. She is currently a member of Trisha Brown Dance Company and Reggie Wilson Fist & Heel Performance Group. Rochelle graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in Dance and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. In her free time Rochelle enjoys reading, singing, making herbal medicine, and supporting her community as a fertility doula.
