As Dance/NYC's Junior Committee reaches its ten year mark, we are catching up with our incredible alumni to hear about their recent accomplishments and perspectives. In our first profile, we're getting to know the choreographer, organizer, editor and superhero, Jen Roit.

Brief Bio:

While dancing for some wonderful choreographers, Randy James of 10HL Projects and Gabriel Chajnik of TranscenDance Group, I produce narrative dance works with my own company: Armada. Serving my aim to democratize dance, I am also on the Artist Committee for National Choreography Month, editor for the Dance Magazine College Guide, Project Manager for TERP Corp, and founder of The Broke Dancer.

Working on now:

Since it’s January and therefore National Choreography Month (NACHMO), I am hard at work setting up the daily choreographic prompts posted on our social media platforms, as well as helming the NACHMO Film Project. And since NY is one of NACHMO production cities, I am choreographing a pointe duet as an excerpt for a future full-length work that will aim to ignore traditional gender roles in partnering, as well as work in more of a downtown aesthetic while the dancers utilize pointe shoes more as tools than as gender signifiers (NACHMO Studio showing on Friday, Feb 2). I’ll debut more of this work on May 6th for Armada Vignettes hosted at the new theater space at The Tank.

Years on JComm:

2015-2016.

One valueable take-away from your time in JComm:

Conversations and connections with a talented group of performers, creators, and professionals that I still keep in touch with now alongside a deeper understanding of some of the major issues the dance world is facing thanks to the broad base of backgrounds I interacted with during my time on JComm. Before JComm I didn’t often have the opportunity to meet with people on the funding and foundation side of the arts world. JComm gave me a chance to learn about their viewpoints, concerns, and hopes for the future.

One change you wish to see made in the NYC dance community:

I would like to see more diverse voices not just onstage but also on paper (be it print or digital). Since dance shows can be so ephemeral, dance writing is incredibly important and the often homogenous backgrounds in most traditional news outlets is deeply troubling. Until we develop a distribution model that allows for broader access of dance performance, we get a few people interpreting a weekend performance that may have taken months to develop. I think greater embracement of technology for distribution of performance and more access given to voices beyond the typical publications would help both choreographers and potential audience members.

If you had a super power, what would it be and why?

Very difficult for the nerd in me to answer this succinctly, but I am going to go with luck. Being in the right place at the right time and being able to say just the right thing. If you’re curious on how I see this as a super power, I am happy to get into a long and winding discussion!