Rochelle Jamila

I am a Brooklyn based multidisciplinary performing artist, dancer, herbalist, and fertility doula born and raised in OkaNashoba or Memphis, Tennessee. I make work about human and ecological fertility, imagining liberation in collaboration with the natural world. I am inspired by African American folk practices, the physical and psychic realms of women, and human and ecological fertility. I weave these themes through dance, song, meditation, and earth-based ritual to build matriarchal worlds.

My work has been presented in Tennessee, New York, the Netherlands, and at venues such as Judson Church, Snug Harbor Botanical Garden, Triskelion Arts, The Buckman Theater, University of Amsterdam, and virtually in Harriet’s Gun Dance Film Festival. I was a 2023 EarthDance Resident, 2024 Resident at A Studio in the Woods, and a recipient of the Brooklyn Arts Council 2024 Creative Equations Cultural Heritage & Dance Fund to support my upcoming work Once We Were Free (July 2025). Currently I am a 2025 Movement Research Van Lier Fellow. 

I am honored to have performed in works by Ebony Noelle Golden, Ogemdi Ude, Adia Whitaker, Jasmine Hearn, Ambika Raina, Beth Gill, Maria Bauman, and Reggie Wilson among others. I am currently a member of Trisha Brown Dance Company and Reggie Wilson Fist & Heel Performance Group.  I graduated from Columbia University with a Bachelor of Arts in Dance and a concentration in Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies.

Image by Ziggy Mack