Rosemary Fletcher

A Moving Experience

Rosemary Fletcher
Dance Professor, South Campus

Professor Rosemary Fletcher, of Florida Community College Repertory Dance Company was a late starter in formal dance studies. Born and raised in Summit, New Jersey, she worked in office and retail jobs before going to college.  
 
A ballet class she took just for fun helped her through a difficult period. But her first thoughts about pursuing dance as a career happened in another class: criminology. She was given an assignment to answer the question: What can you do with your own experience to make a difference in reducing the rate of repeat criminal offenses?  
 
The assignment would prove pivotal in her life. In her research, Fletcher discovered a concept known as dance therapy. Realizing the potential benefit of movement therapy to others, Fletcher would teach dance to kids in an orphanage, hospital patients recovering from chemical dependencies and school-children with learning disabilities.
 
She went on to earn her bachelor’s degree from Western Washington University and a Master of Fine Arts in Performance and Choreography from Arizona State University.
 
When Professor Fletcher moved to Jacksonville with her husband six years ago from Kentucky, there was no dance program at FCCJ. Almost single-handedly, she built the program at South Campus from just a dozen beginners to over 300 students. Modern, ballet, ballroom, jazz, tap, movement for actors and composition and improvisation are taught at various levels.  

“How you walk through the world says so much about who you are,” she said. “Concaved, rolled in shoulders says a lot about how you feel about yourself. Once you come into dance, your shoulders open up. It changes how you walk through the world and your concept of yourself. It sounds cliché, but it changes people’s self-esteem and self-image.”
 
Letters from students attest to her positive influence. One student, recruited by the University of Florida’s excellent dance program, wrote “You believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.”

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