Jillian Amadi Roberts an antiracist Afrodiasporic dance educator, choreographer, director, coach, lecturer, plant mom, and native Washingtonian based in Brooklyn, NY. While Jillian's 25+ year dance journey includes training in a wide variety of forms, her passion for hip hop for dance and culture has awarded her opportunities to create, perform, and teach to ever-growing domestic and international audiences.
Students of all ages have access to Jillian's culturally sustaining, trauma-informed, and antiracist dance pedagogy. Through teaching elementary schoolers by day, adult learners by night, and teenagers on weekends, Jillian's identity as an educator is paramount. Her work connects hip hop dance culture and technique to the African Diaspora, highlights the impact of Afrodiasporic influences on global popular culture, and empowers dancers to participate in hip hop culture authentically and respectfully. This mission has also allowed Jillian to teach lectures, speak on panels, and lead workshops at Dartmouth College, Cornell University, Princeton University, Northeastern University, University of Colorado Boulder, University of California Riverside, Prelude, Billie, and Netflix centered around hip hop culture and dismantling anti-blackness in the dance industry.
Beyond the classroom, Jillian's creativity spans both stage and screen. Choreography credits include music videos for R&B crooner Garth, viral internet sensations The Gregory Brothers, and indie-pop duo Tropic, as well as seven years of competitive performance sets for Mint Dance Company. Jillian's mentorship for Danyel Moulton's DCON4 Program has engaged dancers in critical self-reflection, and her writing and speech for the Freedom Movement Collective has supported an international audience in developing its anti-racist and anti-capitalist hip hop dance praxis.
Jillian received her B.A. in Sociology & Psychology with Honors from Wesleyan University in 2015 and her M.S. in Childhood General and Special Education in 2016 from Touro College. She currently holds NYS certificates in Childhood General Education (1-6) and Dance (K-12). Her mantra remains that the best teachers are even better students, and strives to know more and grow more each day.
3 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217
This class introduces students to grooves, rhythms, textures, pathways, and movement vocabulary in Hip Hop, street styles, and club styles o...
3 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217
11-05 44th Ave, Queens, NY 11101
A nod to a golden era of music, fashion, and culture, 90s & 2000s Hip Hop Grooves is a Beginner to Advanced Beginner class designed to faci...
11-05 44th Ave, Queens, NY 11101
3 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217
Intro to Hip Hop I (June 11 - July 16, 2024) - For absolute beginners with relatively little experience, this series is an introduction to H...
3 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217
I teach dance to grades K-5 at PS 532 New Bridges Elementary School in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. My students learn technique and choreography in hip hop, step, jazz, and modern dance and perform in two Arts Festivals each year. My students learn to celebrate their culture, to respect the cultures of others, and to operate free of judgment and bias as creative people in our society. An antiracist and antibias lens is applied to all of my work, even with my youngest students.
I frequently collaborate with our music teacher, Alice Tsui, on projects combining dance with vocal and instrumental music in creative ways. Most recently, I have also collaborated with Camille A. Brown & Dancers' Every Body Move and Black Girl Spectrum programs to provide supplemental after school dance programming for students from 1st to 5th grades.
The New Bridges Winter and Spring Arts Festivals I have choreographed for include:
WAF 2018: Reach Higher
SAF 2019: Reach Higher
WAF 2019: Live and Learn with DRIVE
SAF 2020: Time to Rise
WAF 2020: Forward Together
SAF 2021: It's A New Day
WAF 2021: Homecoming
SAF 2022: Homecoming - Lift Every Voice
WAF 2022: Many Voices, One Mission
SAF 2023: Many Voices, One Mission
WAF 2023: My Best Me
SAF 2024: Our Best Selves
My class focuses on grooves, the essential connecting factor and heartbeat of hip hop dance.
From 2017-2020, I taught weekly Beginner Hip Hop Foundations classes at House of Movement. The class operated on a 5-week rotation based on the basic grooves of hip hop: down groove, up groove, bounce groove, and the Jack, with Week 5 as a wildcard or texture study week.
In 2021, I began teaching open level Street Styles Choreography at Modega, incorporating hip hop, popping, house, and litefeet techniques into my routines. I began my 90s and 2000s Hip Hop Grooves class in March 2022, and since then the class has become one of the studios most successful yet. The class alternates between a Beginner and Advanced Beginner Level, using the same piece of choreography both weeks but taught according to the appropriate level.
In 2022, I began teaching at NXGN West New York, the newest studio run by Cebo and Shinobou Carr. My Basics class runs like a personalized training session for all students, including drills, specialized tips, and skill building, while my Beginner Hip Hop Choreography class gives students a chance to practice those skills with essential hip hop vocabulary, fluid transitions, and musicality.
Finally, I began teaching at Mark Morris Dance Center in September 2022. This class introduces students to grooves, rhythms, textures, pathways, and movement vocabulary in Hip Hop, street styles, and club styles of Afrodiasporic dance. Steps from the 80's, 90's, and 00's are infused with popular music and movement into a routine that is taught two weeks in a row, allowing students to work on timing, retention, fluidity, and performance.
I freelance choreograph and creative direct music videos, events, and theater productions.
Choreography credits include:
Garth
"Warning Sign" (2023)
"By Summer" (2021)
"Didn't I" (2020)
"Melt" (2019)
"Human Nature" (2017)
The Gregory Brothers
"Do It For Corn Pop" (2020)
"Creeper, Aw Man" (2019)
"OBAMA OUT" (2017)
Tropic's "Secret" (2020)
Cristal Marie's "Anime Girl" (2019)
Into The Robot Live at the YouTube Space NYC
Bridget Bishop Presents: The Salem Bitch Trials (off-Broadway 2016) directed by Jared Rubin Sprowls featuring RuPaul's Drag Race alum Brita Filter, Miz Cracker, and Monét Xchange
I served as Managing Director & Choreographer for Mint Dance Company for 7 years. Since I joined the team in 2015, Mint received a variety of awards in competitions across the East Coast under my direction. Our final competitive set before the pandemic placed 2nd at Reign or Shine Dance Competition and 3rd at Prelude East Coast Urban Dance Competition. The one song set features Ballin Flossin by Chance The Rapper ft. Shawn Mendes intermixed with the original song it samples, I Wanna Be Down by Brandy. Other awards have included 2nd Place at SAYAW Dance Competition at Stony Brook, 2nd Place at NGroove in Connecticut, and Best Theme at L.O.V.E. Dance Competition in Philadelphia.
In 2022, I judged my first competition, the BOOM Dance Comp at the College of Mount St. Vincent in the Bronx alongside Kelly Peters of GenX and BrickHouse.
I have choreographed and performed in independent dance works for Our Canvas Showcase (2024), The Jam Dance Showcase (2018), and RAW Artists NYC (2018). I have also performed with and choreographed for several exhibition teams in the NYC circuit, including Serendipity Dance Troupe, The Blacksons, and Turnstyles Dance.
I take pride in creating video projects that pay homage to artists who inspire me or provide opportunities to dancers I respect. My two most recent projects include a collaboration with Boat & Bridge entitled "JANET" and a combined workshop plus concept video shoot I conducted featuring "Smile" by 808ink. I was also featured in a concept video by The Blacksons celebrating Black History Month entitled "For Us By Us."
Beginner foundations drills and intermediate choreography tutorials available on a donation basis | Venmo @Jillz or Cashapp $JRobertsDance.
Personalized coaching in hip hop, street and club styles, and social dance. Services include beginner to intermediate choreography tutorials, fundamental drills & technique exercises, hip hop history lessons, and creative process & leadership coaching. 60- or 90-minute sessions available. DM or email jillianamadi@gmail.com for inquiries & rates.
Choreography has been featured in r&b and pop music videos, viral comedic YouTube videos, flash mobs, wedding receptions, and much more.
Teaching with integrity and purpose requires an unwavering sense of principle. Considering the social injustices that plague marginalized people inside and outside the dance studio, teachers have a responsibility to evaluate how they create learning spaces that foster growth and transformation. This lecture will walk participants through the process of aligning teaching and learning practices with the core values that form an individual’s outlook on humanity. An antiracist lens will be applied to this dance pedagogy, with an emphasis on connecting individual core values with teaching techniques that honor Afrodiasporic tradition.
"Afrika Bambaataa said hip hop is a culture about peace, love, unity, and having fun.
But when that peace, love, unity, and fun excludes black people, silences black voices, and undermines the black experience, it is NO LONGER accessible to you.
Black lives HAVE to matter, or else hip hop is NOT for you."
"Antiracism and Empathy in Dance Education and Conversations" with Justine Wang
"Hip Hop In Motion" by Alyson Kong
"How Hip Hop Dance Groups Have Helped Asian Americans Find Belonging" by Eda Yu
Trained since age 3 in ballet, modern, tap, and jazz by Lynn B. Welters of New School of Dance & Arts, Jillian grew up striving to call herself a "classically trained" dancer. After over a decade of never feeling fully comfortable with or empowered by Eurocentric dance forms, Jillian fell in love with hip hop dance thanks to movies like You Got Served and Step Up. Choreographing with friends for middle school talent shows jumpstarted of her hip hop dance journey and were followed by bi-annual recitals that she performed, choreographed in, and ultimately directed. As a student of Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Co, Jillian attended company classes and summer intensives to maintain her training throughout high school. She developed further leadership skills serving as Dance Captain for Georgetown Day School's celebrated musical theater program under the tutelage of Laura Rosberg and Maria Watson, which catapulted her towards the performing arts scene at Wesleyan University, her alma mater.
During her undergraduate career, Jillian trained under Clyde Evans and Moncell "illKozby" Durden, two renowned Philadelphia-based hip hop professionals who helped developed her foundation in hip hop, popping, locking, house, and social dance. Simultaneously, she studied Modern and American Dance History from Nicole Stanton and became a mentee of "urban contemporary" choreographer Abdul Latif Rasheed. Jillian danced and choreographed in hip hop, step, and burlesque groups at Wesleyan, and taught workshops on and off campus to adults and children with a variety of dance experience. She also co-founded the dance organization Milk & Choreo, which introduced beginners on campus to hip hop dance, gave experienced dancers opportunities to choreograph and teach, and brought in professional artists from both East and West Coast dance communities to teach workshops on Wesleyan's campus.
After graduating, Jillian moved to New York City where she began training in choreography and street styles foundations at studios like Broadway Dance Center, Peridance Capezio Center, and EXPG. Mentors like Cebo Carr, Chrybaby Cozie, Ms. Vee, Tatiana Desardouin, Sun Kim, and HuuRock have supported her training in house, litefeet, popping, hip hop, and more. Jillian's studies have deepened her understanding of dance as an embodied cultural practice and continue to expand her movement vocabulary as she grows as a dance artist.
After moving to New York City in 2015, Jillian taught 1st grade, 3rd grade, and Dance at Success Academy Charter schools for 3 years and received her professional teaching certification. She simultaneously began substitute teaching at House of Movement in 2016 and joined faculty as a Beginner Hip Hop Foundations instructor from 2017 until 2020. In 2018, she began teaching Dance at New Bridges Elementary - PS 532, an arts integrated public school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. In 2019, she became a recurring guest instructor at Dartmouth College's Street Soul workshop series, and she guest taught at City Dance Studios in San Francisco. During the summer of 2019, she worked with Dance United to provide dance instruction to low-income NYC youth. In the fall of 2019, Jillian began studying at the Dance Education Laboratory at 92nd St Y to become a certified dance specialist, which she achieved in the spring of 2021.
In 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter resurgence, Jillian spoke on several panels about the importance of celebrating black identity within hip hop culture and the impact of anti-blackness in the global dance community, including for Cornell University, Work From Home Workshop Series, The Neighbors Dance Team, Prelude NorCal, and L/a/y/e/r/s Study Hall. In 2021, she became the Hip Hop History Mentor for Danyel Moulton's D-Con 4 virtual dance program and a writer and advisor for Freedom Movement. Since joining the organization, Jillian has written content for the group's social media, spoken on panels, taught lectures, facilitated Q&As, and coached individuals on antiracist strategies within dance education. Jillian has also coached the professional dance team The Company and students from Princeton University, Northeastern University, UC Boulder, UC Riverside, and UC Berkeley to familiarize dancers with the language of Afrodiasporic dance and culture. In 2022, Jillian joined the staff of 3 NYC dance studios - Mark Morris Dance Center, Modega, and NXGN West New York - to teach beginner dancers hip hop technique and choreography.
Jillian maintains a passion for incorporating heritage, history, and culture into dance education and embodying the lineage of Afrodiasporic dance. Jillian’s classes includes important nuggets of historical and cultural context, as well as a variety of essential hip hop dance vocabulary and techniques that she hopes will ignite the students' curiosity to learn even more. She teaches her students of all ages through this same lens, while aligning her elementary instruction to NYC's Blueprint Standards for Arts Education and the DEL Model.
For inquiries about classes, coaching, or other bookings, email or DM and I'll get back to you shortly.
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