City Dance Corp is my happy place! So many amazing instructors, classes and the space is incredible. Kudos to the team for creating such an inviting judgment free space for dancers of all levels.
After a knee injury stalled a fast-rising basketball career,
Montreal-born Jerome Junior Jean-Gilles arrived in Toronto in 1996,
looking for a new channel for his compelling love for life and
movement. Latin American dance not only became the source to
physically inspire and challenge but also to rediscover a pleasure
in rhythm and music that was a constant from his childhood. Raised
upon the Haitian rhythms of Kompa, the Latin American dances rolled
through the body like his native French language from his tongue.
Planting this new creativity and direction into this solid
foundation, Jerome was eager to apply his skills to other forms of
dance. He quickly filled his plate with tap, hip-hop, lindy hopping
and Afro-Cuban dance. Within four years, he was giving instruction
and performances in Latin dance with Toronto’s popular latin dance
studios. His skills as a dancer has taken him to performances
around the world, including Japan, Thailand, Ireland, UK, US, and
Bermuda. Currently, he is a director and instructor with City Dance
Corps and continues to perform independently in tap and
lindy-hopping. In his spare time, Jerome is currently completing
his Accounting degree at Ryerson University. Dancing with the
discipline of a professional athlete and the fluid sensuousness of
his native rhythm, Jerome also has an acute understanding of dance
as creative expression and communication with the music. When
teaching dance instruction, Jerome aims to have each student
discover his or her own relationship with the music, applying and
reapplying his fundamental rule in dance: “Listen to the
music.”