JESSICA CHEN
https://www.jessicachen.co/theater
Jessica Chen is a Chinese American dancer, choreographer, and director based in New York City. A 2023 Bessie Nominee for Outstanding Choreographer/Creator, she is known for creating "visceral ...emotionally charged movements and choreography" (Sarah Draugelis, HuffPost).
Her theater credits include choreographing Les Misérables, Cabaret (Bay Area's Top 3 Best Dance Productions, 2024, Broadway World), Jersey Boys, Come From Away, Spring Awakening, Beautiful: A Carole King Musical, Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, and The Wizard of Oz. She has worked at regional theaters including Syracuse Stage, GEVA Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Palm Beach Dramaworks, CenterREP, and Weathervane. She served as AD and SDCF Director Fellow on SUMO at The Public Theater, which received the 2025 Drama Desk Award for Fight Choreography.
She is the Founder and Artistic Director of J CHEN PROJECT, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit contemporary dance company built to create work centered on identity, cultural diversity, belonging, and the Asian American experience. JCP's productions have been presented at MoMA for New York Fashion Week, Lincoln Center's Restart Stages, Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the World Expo USA Pavilion in Shanghai, and TEDx Semester at Sea, and featured by Google Arts & Culture in partnership with the Asian American Arts Alliance. She conceived and ran the JCP Mentorship Program for six years, drawing aspiring professional dancers who traveled from Germany, Denmark, China, and across the United States to take part.
Her piece NüWa (女媧) is archived at the New York Public Library's Jerome Robbins Dance Division. JCP's signature work AAPI Heroes, running since 2023, completed a national tour in 2026.
Chen is a 2021 GALLIM Moving Women Artist-in-Residence, a 2021 Dance Lab New York Choreographer, and a 2021-2023 Artist-in-Residence at the Museum of Chinese in America. She received the 2025 SDCF Lynnette Barkley Award. She is an adjunct professor of theater and dance at Montclair State University and a proud member of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.
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A chapter on "Identity and Marketing in World of Social Media" written by Jessica Chen.
A Life In Dance aims to broaden the dancer's knowledge of the possibilities available to them by providing inspiring stories of dancers both known and unknown who have trodden these paths. It translates these stories in a tangible way with a resource guide to create a roadmap for a life in dance.
