Dance
Fifteen years designing products that get people to do what's good for them. In dance I work on the other side: I perform, I design the costumes, and I test on myself what I ask millions of users to do.
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The brief: understand movement from the inside. I direct design for health and fitness products, Lose It! among them. You can't design behaviour change you haven't lived, so since 2024 I've trained and performed as a dancer: hip-hop first, with Zumba and contemporary alongside.
Each project here uses the same craft as my day job: a concept, a costume system, art direction, and a performance that has to land with a real audience. It also connects my brands, because SPARK + REBEL dresses performers. The thesis underneath is simple: movement is healing. Next I'm building an app that brings it to the people the dance world never invited.
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Performer, costume designer and creative director of my own looks. Choreography by my teachers, Max Homiak, Carlito Peralta Jr., Michael Von Simpson, and Jaami Waali.
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4+ public performances since my first in summer 2025, including the San Diego County Fair (Funville Stage, June 2026) and Balboa Nights. Next: I perform with House of Psyche in Fusion Movement Arts' Beautiful Beasts, October 4, 2026, at the Samuel M. Ciccati Performing Arts Center in El Cajon.
The Challenge
The dance world says you're done at thirty. I started later than that, because movement is healing at any age.
The dance industry has an unwritten cutoff at thirty. At Lose It! I see the other side: about four in ten American adults live with obesity. The art form that shows how good movement feels is closed to most of the people it could help. I want to change that.
It's also hard, and it's acting. Every class trains memory, strength and stamina at once, and my teacher Carlito keeps saying “Dancing is acting.” That's how dance led me to Voices in Jessica's Head.
Minsk, the 1990s
I grew up under doctor's orders: no sports, no dance. My friends were dancing hip-hop in the mid-nineties, and I loved that culture with nowhere to put it. So I dressed them. I became the stylist of the group and started selling street-style pieces. Fashion was the part of hip-hop I was allowed to have.
The Brand Pillars
Movement
Movement is healing. I've felt it in my own body, and I see the need for it every day designing fitness products. Hip-hop is the focus, with Zumba and contemporary alongside, and every project here is a test of what I ask users to do.
Costume
Healing has to be worn. I design what I dance in, and each look is built so the body can go all the way: dancewear underneath, the character on top, tested against the hardest eight counts.
Performance
Dancing is acting, and a stage is where healing turns into something an audience can feel. Every piece has a character and a reason to be watched. This is where dance led me to comedy.
What I've made so far
Project 01 — Break Free.
Hip-hop reel · San Diego · March 2026
Overview
We settle for jobs we hate and forget self-expression. My hip-hop teacher Max Homiak choreographed what breaking free from that looks like, and I designed my own costumes to tell it: first the masks, then the color.
Tradeoff
Three perfectionists in recovery on one set. We cut every part where we weren't perfect, so the reel came out very short. A piece about letting go, edited by people who couldn't quite.
Watch Break Free
Overview
Two songs from my teacher Michael Von Simpson, one after the other: Britney Spears' "Stronger" into Beyoncé's "Freedom" from Homecoming, with the marching band. Two costumes to match. The first is Britney's 2000 video worn my way, in black sequins. The second is not sexy, it's powerful: a studded leather jacket over the red tartan kilt from Break Free.
Project 02 — Stronger / Freedom.
Stage performance · The Dancehouse, San Diego · March 2026
Tradeoff
Three perfectionists in recovery on one set. We cut every part where we weren't perfect, so the reel came out very short. A piece about letting go, edited by people who couldn't quite.
Watch Stronger / Freedom
Overview
A small team: Candi, Max and me. We had each watched Step Up years apart, and it gave us the story: how we prepare to dance. Training, stretching, working on the costumes, then one final scene, to Sean Paul's "Give It Up To Me" with Max Homiak's choreography. Hip-hop meets dancehall. For the look I went for cutouts, a 90s vibe, sexy on purpose.
Project 03 — Give It Up To Me.
Dance short · San Diego · May 2026
Tradeoff
We had many more shots in mind, mostly B-roll. As a former film student I love B-roll, because those shots tell the story: how else do you show repetition and routine? But we underestimated how long the light setup would take and ran out of time. We traded the B-roll for the overall vibe and a more polished choreo.
Watch Give It Up To Me
Project 04 — San Diego County Fair.
Live stage · Funville Stage, San Diego County Fair · June 2026
Overview
Hip-hop live at the Fair with The Dancehouse, choreographed by Carlito Peralta Jr. A set of four tracks across three styles: locking, breaking and tutting. The whole crew moves as one: big crowd, big energy, and the pure joy of dancing on stage.
Tradeoff
The transitions between four tracks and three styles, and then something I didn't plan for: I stumbled on the very first move. I was shocked at myself. The stage was much closer to the crowd than I expected, and people were watching the tiny details of my face. I solved it the only way there is mid-set: I told myself I can do it, and kept going.
Watch San Diego County Fair
Live stage · The Dancehouse, San Diego · Summer 2025My first-ever hip-hop performance: the summer 2025 series at The Dancehouse, choreographed by Carlito Peralta Jr. Weeks of rehearsal building to my very first time on stage. Where it all began.
Almost two years in, I train every week, I've performed on four stages and counting, and on October 4 I dance in a theater show with House of Psyche. None of that was supposed to be possible for the girl with the doctor's note.
The Result
Dance led to acting, and acting led to Jessica. It also gave me my next product: a dance app in my wellbeing suite, built on the one thing this whole page is about: movement is healing, and nobody should be told they're too old, too late or the wrong shape to start.