Jennifer Polyocan
she/her
A native of Great Neck, New York, Jennifer Polyocan (she, her) received her training at the prestigious School of American Ballet and with Nancy Bielski at the David Howard School of Dance. After graduating from Professional Children's School in NYC, she joined the Miami City Ballet where she remained for five years having the opportunity to perform soloist and principal roles. Jennifer later joined Wes Chapman's Alabama Ballet and the Washington Ballet where she performed soloist and principal roles. Jennifer performed title roles in Coppelia and Giselle and danced principle roles in works by Antony Tudor, Nacho Duato, Septime Webre, Kirk Peterson and Dwight Rhoden. In addition to a career in ballet, Polyocan is also a graduate of New College of California with a degree in Arts and Social Change. She has taught ballet for over 20 years to both children and adults. She has taught at ODC, UC Berkeley, For Smuin Ballet, Amy Stewart’s Imagery, Belvoir Ballet and University of San Francisco. She acquired a certification in the Vaganova method of levels 1-3 from the Pennsylvania Academy of Ballet, and a training in RPM. Polyocan has studied extensively with her mentor and friend Augusta Moore, and shares many of teaching pedagogies as she had the greatest influence on Jennifer as a teacher. She has completed a three year training course at the Alexander Technique Center of Cambridge and is ATI certified and is also certified in PBT (Progressing Ballet Technqiue™) Throughout her career she experienced mind-body techniques as an important and valuable measure for preventing injuries and firmly believes that body awareness and curiosity leads to an intelligent dancer, performer and artist. #movemindfullysf