about our community

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Jess Grippo (she/her) is the founder of Dance Again and the creator and facilitator of the Dance Again Teacher Training.

After leaving her classical ballet path and not dancing for almost a decade, she then started making dance videos alone in her room, which essentially brought her back to life.

Since then she’s gradually built Dance Again as a creative business and dance company, and has been featured at TEDxNYU, Lincoln Center's Dance On Camera Festival, the NY Comedy Club, Women’s Health Magazine, and more, as well as dancing on the streets with strangers, which she documents on social media. 

In her personal creative work, she writes and creates interpretive, comedic dances out of real life stuff, from dating woes to eating cheese to period problems. 

Her classes are creative, approachable, and encourage your unique expression. 

Read more about our founder, Jess Grippo 

Dana Rose DeFrancesco (she/her) teaches Contemporary-ish classes with us. 

She  is a dancer, yogi, healer, body worker, builder, and teacher. 

Dana studied dance and dance education at University of the Arts, received high levels of training as a yoga teacher/therapist, is a licensed massage therapist/bodyworker, and has a masters in Sports Exercise Psychology. 

She was a professional dancer at many times in her life and loved everything about it! Unfortunately, she has been plagued from the age of 16, with chronic injuries, which had her locking away her passion for dance for a long time.

In 2015 she was coached by Jess to find her spark again, and surprisingly, found a home and dance family in the newly forming Dance Again movement, where we are now lucky to have her as a teacher. 

Her class highlights include thorough warm-ups with an injury prevention angle, and a penchant for 80s music. Expect to move a lot and learn a lot!

Yxia Olivares (she/her) teaches Hip-Hop classes with us.

She is a Dominican-American choreographer, dancer, fitness instructor, and visual artist. A self-taught hip-hop dancer and choreographer, and a proud mom, Yxia shares her endless enthusiasm and experience to help her students feel welcomed and inspired, and to have fun and learn a lot!

She’s worked with icons such as Salt N’ Pepa, Jay Z, Britney Spears, Sean “Puffy” Combs, lil’ Kim, Mariah Carey, Will Smith, Snoop, NAS, Missy Elliott, Mary J. Blige, Gwen Stefani, Neyo, 50 Cent, Wyclef Jean, and Sean Paul.

…as well as with choreography notables: Jaime King, Laurie Ann Gibson, Jerry Mitchell, Tina Landon, Fatima Robinson, HiHat, Jamal Sims, Rosero McCoy, Buddha Stretch, Devyne Stephens, NuStylz, Shotyme, Randy Connor, and Tanisha Scott. 

We are proud and lucky to have her with us at Dance Again! Expect a high energy class with lots of sweat and fun. 

Tiffany Mangulabnan (she/her) teaches Rusty Ballet classes with us. 

She is a New York-based Filipino dancer, choreographer, teacher and a founding co-artistic director of the Brooklyn-based contemporary ballet company konverjdans. 

Born and raised in Manila, she began her professional career with the Philippine Ballet Theatre when she was 15 and went on to perform as a principal dancer with the company before she moved to New York City in 2012.  In New York, she freelanced as a dancer for many years with BalletNext, Claudia Schreier & Co., Emery LeCrone DANCE, Gleich Dances, Terra Firma Dance and other companies. She currently works as a dancer at The Metropolitan Opera as well as with konverjdans, Pigeonwing Dance, Indelible Dance, Abanar, and John Passafiume Dancers, among other companies, choreographers and filmmakers. 


Tiffany is also a passionate teacher of classical ballet, teaching advanced ballet classes at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York City, open professional ballet classes at NY Community Ballet and, most recently, Rusty Ballet classes with Dance Again! We love her highly skilled and highly compassionate approach. 

Isaiah Newby (he/they) teaches Rusty Ballet classes with us.

Isaiah Newby is a performing artist driven by movement and its possibilities. As a dance artist, actor, and collaborator, they have a career that spans ballet companies, recording artists, contemporary dance, opera, and modeling. Credits include The Met Opera, Sterling King, Dance Lab New York, and live performances for artists Allison Clancy and Jayse Vegas. 

Isaiah attended New York University in the Tisch School of The Arts Dance Department under the direction of Sean Curran. Before NYU, they attended the University of North Carolina School of the Arts under the direction of Susan Jaffe in the ballet program. He has performed works by Aszure Barton, Susan Jaffe, Ronald K. Brown, Dwight Rohden, Stephen Petrino, Chuck Wilt, and Gregory Dolbashian. 

While attending NYU they also were in Limon 2 having the chance to perform with the company at the Joyce Theater. They previously worked with DanceLab NYC for their MORE TO THE POINTE LAB as a choreographer and more recently with The 14Y Theater’s 2024 Dance Residency Dance in Evolution: 5 Works in Progress. 

From Isaiah:

As an artist, I work in the mindset that my choreographic voice is not separate from who I am as a dancer. I think we as dancers without trying will be and act as a medium for change. I move and create to bring meaning, to bring beauty, to bring possibility, and to bring inspiration, and hope into a concrete world. Isaiah enjoys cooking, yoga, reading, spending time with friends, and seeking out new restaurants when not performing.

Kanami Kusajima (she/her) teaches Contemporary-ish and Improv classes with us.

Kanami Kusajima is a dancer / performing artist / choreographer originally from Japan. She received a BFA degree in Dance from SUNY Purchase College in 2020. She has performed in dance works by various choreographers, including Francesca Harper, Yoshiko Chuma and Ana Maria Lucaciu. 

Since November 2020, she's been performing at Washington Square Park and known as “Let Hair Down,” a performer who combines live painting and improvisational dance. Her unique style of performing art drew the attention of different media, such as Voice of America, New York Magazine, The Guardian, AM New York, and PIX11 News, among many others.

Marisa Catena (she/her) teaches Contemporary-ish and Jazz classes with us.

Marisa Catena is a dancer, choreographer and dance educator. She graduated with a BA in Dance and Sociology from Rutgers University and a MA in Dance Education from New York University. She has over 20 years’ experience teaching dance in private studios, community centers and within the NYC and NJ public school systems, grades PK-12th grade.  

Marisa has been a member of Dance Again since its creation in 2015.  She participated in multiple workshops, including the Dance Again Teacher Training and Solo Immersion and has choreographed and performed in various showcases.  

Marisa is grateful to Dance Again for creating a supportive community who shares her passion for dance.  Marisa believes everyone deserves a chance to dance and hopes to inspire people to embrace dance as a creative outlet to express themselves and feel empowered.  

Michelle Maso (she/her) is an original Dance Again member and choreographer. 

She identifies as a dancer, educator, wife, mother and many other things. She studied Dance at Rutgers University and Special Education at Long Island University. Michelle is a full time Dance Educator with the NYC Department of Education, where she teaches 3K and Pre-K Creative Movement.

In 2015, at the beginning of Jess Grippo’s You Can Dance Again movement, Michelle rediscovered her dancer self and has been dancing and creating ever since. She enjoys sharing her passion for dance and helping her students and her children, Amelia and Oscar, develop body awareness and comfort, while encouraging their creative expression.

Cate Prefontaine Hausmann (she/her) is an original Dance Again member and choreographer. 

Over the past few years, Cate has reconnected with her creativity in partnership with Jess through writing painting, dancing, and now, choreography. When Cate is not dancing, she serves as the principle of an all girls charter school in Manhattan. She has previously worked as a teacher, coach, administrator and consultant in schools around the United States. 

She loves to dance with her husband Kevin and to bring the gift of dance into the lives of family, friends, and even perfect strangers through teaching and taking classes, making dance videos and performing whenever possible. Cate is thrilled to be taking the lead as a facilitator with her dynamic, energetic, inclusive and down to earth approach to dance. 

Taryn Smith (she/her) is our resident somatic expressive arts therapist in the Dance Again Teacher Training and is taking private clients. 

She has a passion for working with creatives, artists, innovators and activists who are looking to break limiting patterns and cycles in their art, work, life and relationships. Her work operates off the idea that what happens to you is stored and processed not only in the mind, but also in your body. 

In your sessions together you'll explore how to work through personal and creative deadlocks, cope and create while living in a world that often does not view your work/existence as valid, manage symptoms of emotional overwhelm, creative fatigue, and “imposter syndrome” while using creative art and body centered approaches that help get to the ‘root of it’. 

Her sessions center curiosity, playfulness, well placed humor and warmth while simultaneously offering an assertive, focused approach and therapeutic process. 

Taryn incorporates a progressive and social justice focused lens and has ample experience serving clients with varied and complex trauma.

To learn more, book a complimentary session with her: https://calendly.com/tarynlsmith 

April Cantor (she/her) teaches expressive classes with us.

Through yoga, movement, interactive art experiences she teaches from a multicultural, interdisciplinary perspective. April Cantor has been teaching yoga & meditation for over 20 years and before that was an actor/dancer and theater educator. She is also of mother of 2 teen boys. All these roles influence her teaching - you will find elements of the stage, the mat, the cushion, and mamma-love in her classes.

Like any good mother, she wants you to leave class feeling nurtured, cared for and empowered. She also aims to help elevate the everyday to something magical and sacred through making dance a ritual, a way of “drawing down the divine.”