One could say Miss Alyssa was destined to teach.
When she was younger, Alyssa would line her stuffed animals up and play Sunday School. Next, she would put on fancy high heels and a dress to teach dance and choreograph a recital in the driveway. Later, she would move downstairs and make her siblings play school.
“Ever since I was five, I always loved to help people and teach people,” Miss Alyssa said.
Alyssa received fourteen years of dance education at the Jewish Community Center in Omaha. She went on to UNL to pursue a teaching degree, and decided to audition for the dance program and got in. However, at that time, the Elementary Education majors were not allowed to receive a minor.
“Dance always brought so much joy to my life,” Alyssa said. “And yet at the same time I wasn’t getting any credentials and it felt like a waste of time.”
The day Alyssa quit dance she was mopping the floor where she worked when the song, “I Hope You Dance” started to play. She told herself the next year she would try to get back into the dance program.
That next year, UNL changed their policy and allowed Education majors to receive a minor.
“It was like a wink from God,” Alyssa said. “When you are meant for something, it follows you.”
But confidence wasn’t always easy for Alyssa. She was a nervous dancer and cared what other people thought, and it affected her dancing. It wasn’t until Alyssa went to Mozambique for two years that things changed.
“The people I was with in Africa would dance for hours before church services,” she said. “And they were so free.”
The dance minor opened up after Alyssa returned from Africa, and the director of dance at UNL noticed a remarkable change in Alyssa.
“She said it was like Africa literally got into my blood,” Alyssa said. “She said I was much more free.”
Freedom has been a huge influence in how Miss Alyssa teaches her dance classes at Bloom.
“I really want my students to feel free first and foremost,” she said. “Not striving for perfection.”
She believes being caught up in doing everything perfect can cause dancers to feel stressed and “mess up.” She likes to teach from a place of freedom and excellence.
“Freedom and excellence can be married,” Alyssa said. “The most beautiful dancers to watch on stage are the free dancers because their passion is shining through.”
Alyssa admitted she struggled to learn choreography growing up, and that gives her compassion when her students struggle. The first time she danced in front of the UNL directors she left in tears. But, in Mozambique, her fear of making mistakes broke off.
“You can’t mess dance up, because when you are free to express the beauty inside you, expressing the beauty of the art form, there is no messing up,” she said. “You might do the step wrong, but people are going to notice the freedom more than a wrong step.”
This is why in her Seeds classes Miss Alyssa likes to turn on music and encourage her students to dance like they were five again. She finds after this activity her students are more excellent when learning choreography.
“They’ve tapped into the joy, that delight, in who they were created to be,” she said. “And the gratitude that we are able to move our bodies and celebrate life in such a fun way.”
Alyssa has been with Bloom Dance Studio from the beginning. In fact, she was the first person the owner, Erin Jensen, approached when she dreamed up the studio.
“I really feel like who Alyssa is, is a part of Bloom’s DNA,” Miss Erin said. “Life, beauty, caring, and a real connection to how God feels about kids.”
Ask any of the teachers and staff at Bloom and they will say Alyssa brings joy, beauty, and life everywhere she goes, but especially at Bloom.
“Her ability to transmit how God feels about kids comes out in her classroom in how she cares for her kids, teaches her kids, and has patience with her kids,” Erin said.
Alyssa has a real niche with younger students and teaches from a place of respect and creating safe boundaries. She demands a lot from her students, but they want to give it and be around her.
“When we can feel fully safe to be ourselves, fully free to express who we are and fully loved, then within those boundaries we can experience radical freedom as a dancer,” Alyssa said.