About Jessica & April

Jessica T. Pearson (she/her) is an Associate Professor of Dance at Rhode Island College. She is a dancer, educator and choreographer who danced with the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Gesel Mason, Concepts In Motion (Bermuda), and Denizen Arts. As an educator of modern dance traditions, she has been invited to teach at Ballet West Summer Intensive, Brown University, Providence College, Urbanity Summer Intensive, University of Kentucky Lexington, Festival Ballet, and has taught overseas. Her choreography has been selected to perform at Boston Contemporary Dance Festival, Southern Vermont Dance Festival and Collective Thread (NY). Urbanity Next, Utah Regional Ballet, Rhode Island College, Salve Regina University, University of Kentucky Lexington, University of Utah, and Providence College have commissioned choreography by Ms. Pearson. Jessica was a principal dancer in Hocus Pocus 2 and recently joined SAG-AFTRA. Prior to Rhode Island College, she was a Post MFA Fellow at the University of Utah. She received her MFA in Dance from the University of Colorado Boulder where she studied dance pedagogy and choreography and BFA in Dance from Towson University in Towson, Maryland.

April Brown is an entrepreneur, artist, and Director of the Racial & Environmental Justice Committee and co-director of the annual Langston Hughes Community Poetry Reading in Providence. Her experience includes being an ordained minister and former professor, education administrator, artist programmer and college counselor. Here in Rhode Island, she has worked with Rhode Island Black Storytellers and the National Association of Black Storytellers as the African Marketplace director; and with Turnaround Arts: Providence as its local program director. She is a published poet, acclaimed singer and actress who has performed internationally in Japan and Israel. Brown holds a Bachelors of Arts (BA) degree from the American University, in Washington, DC, and a Master’s in Education from the University of Rhode Island. She served in several community-at-large leadership positions for arts and civics organizations. She has also served as a board member of Community Music Works and is a member of the Special Committee for Commemorative Works for Providence and other boards throughout the State.

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Photo: Jessica T. Pearson