Rita Hemmings

Marguerite Hemmings is Jamaican born, raised in New Jersey, and has been living in NYC for the past 10 years. She graduated from Columbia University in Education and Urban Studies. As a dancer, Marguerite specializes in street styles, social dances, hip hop, and dancehall, and has been training in modern and West African. She currently teaches Experimental Dancehall, a term she has coined to capture her love of dancehall/reggae culture, music, and dance as well as her love for movement exploration, improvisation, and challenging norms and expectations of how we express ourselves.

Marguerite’s work also centers around liberation. She has received grants from the Jerome Foundation, Brooklyn Arts Council, and University Settlement to further her work as an artist/organizer. She is most recently a recipient of the 2015-16 Dancing While Black Fellowship. In her day-to-day work she subverts and creates with youth and fellow teaching artists. She co-founded a youth empowerment dance intensive, the New York Youth Movement Collaborative. She is a teaching artist/artist in residence with University Settlement and co-directs a collective of teaching artists, Collective Movements.