Ms. Rochelle grew up in the Bay Area before moving to Southern California to pursue dance.  With a lifelong desire to learn, she earned both a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Arts in Dance from Cal State University, Long Beach. Her career has always been comprised of equal parts educator, choreographer, and dancer, and she finds fulfillment and balance by working in all three avenues.

 

As a performer, she has danced with such musical artists as Gladys Knight and Wayne Brady and performed on the FX television show Nip/Tuck.   She continues to dance with the bi-coastal (NY/CA) contemporary BARE Dance Company under the direction of Mike Esperanza and spent almost a decade as a dancer, choreographer, and rehearsal director for Long Beach-based RhetOracle Dance Company with Nate Hodges.

 

Rochelle’s versatile choreographic works span across many movement genres and venues. Her concert work has been presented in the MashUp Contemporary Dance Company’s ‘Balance for Better’ Festival, the Southern California Dance Invitational, Fuse Dance Company’s Synthesis Festival, The Carpenter Center’s Arts for Life program, RhetOracle Dance Company repertory shows, several college dance departments, and annually at the Halo: Dance for Austim Benefit Concert.  She has created hundreds of competition dances for high school dance teams and studios throughout California, Texas, Washington, Utah, Colorado and Idaho.  For the last decade, Rochelle has created movement for 3-time WGI World Champion, Pulse Percussion, creating a strong visual style for the ensemble, contributing to the evolution of visual design within the percussion activity.​ 

​​Rochelle is often described as a ‘true dance educator’ and has trained thousands of dancers in contemporary dance and jazz technique.  She is on faculty at the American Ballet Theater Gillespie School and spent 18 years training elite dancers at the Orange County School of the Arts, Commercial Dance Conservatory.  She thrives in a master class setting; an expert in teaching multiple levels, managing large groups, and creating an inspired energy in the space. Master class opportunities have taken her as far as Japan and include notable events like the Dizzy Feet Foundations National Dance Day, Dance aTAK conventions, KAR conventions, Texas Dance Educator Association convention, and numerous elite dance team camps for the United Spirit Association.

As an educator, Rochelle is articulate in her instruction, clear with movement intentions, challenging in her expectations and physicality, and a little witty in her delivery.  She helps dancers of all ages and levels take their dancing to the next level. Her strong academic background influences her pedagogical practice, rooting her classes in the kinesiology of movement mechanics, the history of various dance forms, and a plethora of techniques and philosophies.  Rochelle’s technical foundation is clear in both her jazz technique across the floor progressions and her contemporary combinations that are rhythmically-driven with nuanced musicality.  Beyond the physical challenge, dancers often connect to Rochelle’s class for the life lessons woven into dance lessons that inherently express the humanity of dance.