The JAE Community
“Thank you Jean, dancers and anyone else there helping I cannot see, thank you ALL for showing up and sharing dance and spirit, it is helpful, needed and SOOOO GOOOOOOD!”
“I loved the class, knowing my community and connecting with them. When we moved, I felt my stress melt away.”
Over the past fifteen years in Boston, Jean has succeeded in creating a vibrant and supportive community brought together by his weekly Saturday Afro-Haitian class at The Dance Complex (536 Mass Ave, Cambridge). It’s a huge, loose network of hundreds of people, about 75 of whom dance together in Jean's class every Saturday. The students are a rainbow of all ages, shapes, genders and backgrounds. It is a communal celebration through dance and music. This community is an essential part of what makes JAE, well, JAE. We celebrate this community annually at Banboche, a party held every December featuring performance not only by JAE company dancers, but by interested community members.
A central focus of our efforts during COVID-19 has been to find a way to maintain our connection with this community, which is what has led us to offer outdoor and online dance classes using a donation-based or sliding-scale model of payment. Learn how to access these classes.
It is also vitally important to JAE to continue to bring the healing power of dance to the wider community in Boston, especially those who identify as Haitian and/or as immigrants. We regularly collaborate with organizations who serve these communities to run workshops centered in dance, healing, and conversation. If you’re interested in setting up a workshop, please contact us.
Jean's Teaching Practice
Jean’s practice is based on a strong foundation in ballet, Horton technique, and Haitian folkoric dance. Developed by Lester Horton, Horton technique emphasizes a whole body, anatomical approach to dance that uses flexibility, strength, coordination and body and spatial awareness to enable unrestricted, dramatic freedom of expression. Jean’s alma mater, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, is known for its strong use of Horton technique, derived from Ailey’s studies with Lester Horton, who was his most significant artistic and pedagogical influence.
Beyond technique, Jean’s dance classroom provides a uniquely positive and affirming atmosphere in which every student (regardless of ability and prior training) is deemed inherently capable and artistic. Jean creates a highly rigorous and challenging environment in which he has the same expectations of every student: to achieve their best through personal expression. Jean’s gift as a teacher is that all dancers leave the same class feeling that they have had a successful experience, regardless of whether they are a beginning or advanced dancer.