Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Kelley.
Hi Jessica, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My story begins in San Diego, where I grew up the third child of a single, disabled mother in a low income home. Movement was my language before I ever had words for it my family loves to tell stories of me as a toddler extending my leg into ballet positions and forcing everyone to watch me twirl with scarves at holiday gatherings. I was simply born a dancer. I like to say i’ve been dancing since the womb.
Dance became more than joy it became my way of communicating, regulating my emotions and giving me purpose. After several years of rec-center tap and jazz classes, attending a public middle school for arts, I found ballet at age eleven, and everything changed when the San Diego Civic Youth Ballet awarded me a full scholarship I held for 6 years. Without that organization I would not be here. It taught me early that art should be accessible to everyone a belief that has guided my entire life.
After arts high school, San Diego school of creative and performing arts, my first instinct was to give back. I taught across San Diego and joined The PGK Dance Project, performing in libraries, parks and galleries, and stages bringing dance directly to communities. One evening a woman told me that watching me move inspired her to start dancing herself. That moment defined my purpose, my gift was never just for me.
In 2019 I was also scouted by Living World Entertainment and trained in four-legged stilt walking — a craft I never imagined for myself, but one that would come to define me.
A transformative road trip during the pandemic brought me to Chattanooga about five years ago. I founded Emit Arts LLC — Elevated Movement in Time — and though I had never even attended a music festival, I became fixated on building a giant jellyfish character. I brought her to life at the underwater-themed Imagine Festival in Georgia in 2022, and she has been central to my identity ever since. Performing as Jelley, a nod to my mother’s childhood nickname “Kathy Kelley Jelly Belly.” I describe myself as a real-life fairy on a mission to spread light and love. My performances have become gentle rituals: festival-goers become “jelly babies” only after pledging to spread light and love everywhere they go they are allowed to walk through my legs and be reborn a BABY JELLY. A message thousands now carry across the globe.
This past year has been the most defining of my life. Ten months after ACL reconstruction surgery, I performed my dream role as Puck in Ballet Esprit’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with live accompaniment from members of the Chattanooga Symphony. Standing on that stage, fully healed and fully alive, was the culmination of everything I’ve fought for.
But none of this happened alone. Every step of my journey has been held by community, the mentors who believed in me, the organizations that opened doors, my husband Rob, my friends, and the beautiful humans of Chattanooga and beyond who show up for me again and again. My success is built on their love, and my gratitude is endless.
From a little girl twirling with a scarf to a professional performer and business owner, dance has carried me through everything. And I intend to spend the rest of my life passing that gift on.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Smooth? Definitely not, but every struggle has shaped me into who I am.
My journey started with challenges most people never see. Growing up in a low income home with a single, disabled mother and a brother battling addiction, dance training should have been completely out of reach for me. Without scholarships, and public arts schools it would have been. There were years where my access to my art depended entirely on the generosity of organizations and mentors who believed in me. That instability taught me resilience early on but it also taught me that talent means nothing without opportunity, which is why accessibility remains at the heart of everything I do.
Building a performance career from scratch came with its own battles. When I moved to Chattanooga during the pandemic, I was starting completely over in a new city, no community, no clients, no stages. I built Emit Arts one gig, one festival, one connection at a time. There is no roadmap for making a living as a giant jellyfish, fairy, clown or walking garden on stilts. I had learn in real time, turn to friends in the industry and continue to build business skills that are rarely taught to artists, and most importantly believe in my vision.
Then came the biggest test of my life! A full ACL reconstruction with meniscus repair. For a professional dancer and stilt walker, that injury is existential. Your body is your instrument, your income and your identity all at once. The surgery and recovery meant losing weeks of teaching and months of performing, rebuilding my body from the bed up, and confronting the terrifying question every injured dancer faces: will I ever move the same again?
Ten months later, I answered that question performing my dream role as Puck. The road back required more discipline, patience, support and faith than anything I’ve ever done.
And through it all, there’s the invisible struggle every performer knows, the exhaustion of constantly giving your energy to others, learning to protect your own light, balancing a demanding career with a marriage and a home, and finding rest in a life that never stops moving.
The road wasn’t smooth. But I wouldn’t trade a single pothole. Every struggle deepened my empathy, sharpened my purpose and proved to me that I can rebuild from anything. That knowledge is the foundation everything else in my life stands on.
And perhaps the most magical part of this journey I met my husband Rob while we were both performing on stilts at To the Moon, Tennessee’s regional Burn. If it weren’t for the winding path that led me here. Every struggle, every leap of faith, every step on stilts, I would have never found my true soulmate. My art quite literally brought me my greatest love.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a professional dancer, choreographer, stilt walker and conceptual performance artist. Through my company Emit Arts LLC — Elevated Movement in Time — I create living art characters that bring wonder to festivals and events across the Southeast and beyond including my signature character: TheGiantJelley, a towering, glowing jellyfish fairy, and The Wandering Wisteria, a living garden where I invite people to come wander among the flowers.
What I’m known for goes beyond spectacle. At eight feet tall on stilts, I could simply be admired from a distance but one of my favorite things about what I’ve created is breaking the fourth wall entirely. I bring people into my world and I step into theirs, so together we create magic and memories that last forever. My performances are gentle rituals of connection. I invite festival-goers to become “jelly babies” but only after they pledge to spread light and love everywhere they go. That message now travels the globe through thousands of people, and that ripple effect is what I’m most proud of.
I have also been a model for over ten years. Working as a figure model for artists, and as a dance, fashion and conceptual art model for photographers. Modeling has been another beautiful extension of my life in movement. Learning to tell stories through stillness and embody art in entirely new ways. Collaboration is at the heart of why I love it! Coming together with visual artists to co-create imagery that captures emotion beyond words is pure magic to me. Every shoot is a shared story, a meeting of visions. And within that creative exchange, I’ve found yet another space where I am completely free to express myself.
I am also a certified Pilates instructor, Pure Barre teacher, and dance educator and choreographer. Most recently performing my dream role as Puck in Ballet Esprit’s THE DREAM, just ten months after ACL reconstruction surgery.
What sets me apart? I don’t perform AT people, I connect WITH them. Whether I’m eight feet tall on stilts, in front of a camera or teaching in a studio, my mission is the same: meeting people exactly where they are and reminding them that magic is real, movement is medicine, and light is meant to be shared.
Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
Oh, so many beautiful souls deserve credit. My success has truly been built on the love of community.
It starts with my mother Katherine Kelley, who raised three children on her own through circumstances that would have broken most people, and who never once told me my dreams were too big. Director Danika Pramik-Holdaway of San Diego Civic Youth Ballet gave me 6 years of scholarship training that made my entire career possible. Proof that when organizations invest in young artists, they change the trajectory of lives. My teachers throughout arts middle school, high school and Peter Kalivas my mentor and director ThePGKDanceProject shaped not just my technique but my belief that art belongs to everyone.
Here in Chattanooga, my community has held me through everything. Sarah Yvonne, the director of Ballet Esprit, believed in me enough to trust me with my dream role of Puck just ten months after major knee surgery and to set the lovers choreography. Dr. Bruce, my surgeon, quite literally rebuilt the foundation I stand on. My fairy godmother Surreina Gerbman of Elaruna Sound Sanctuary has been a healing light guiding my spiritual journey and growth. My best friend Jenna Brevig my ride or die has cheered, supported, created art, helped build TheGiantJelly 2.0 and grounded me through every high and low.
I want to give a special shoutout to Chrystal Parker of Crystalline Creative. Chrystal has spent the last decade paving the way for performers in Chattanooga. Building a successful performance company, creating countless opportunities for artists like me that in return and lifted our community up. So much of what performers in this city can do today is because Chrystal built the road first. I’m honored to know her and work alongside her.
I’m also so deeply grateful to the studio owners and bosses across Chattanooga who have welcomed me into their spaces, trusted me with their clients and students, and given me the opportunity to grow as a teacher. Their belief in me has opened doors I once only dreamed of.
And I have to honor the incredible community of festival-goers, students and clients across Chattanooga and beyond. When I was recovering from surgery and unable to work, I humbly asked for support and they showed up beyond anything I could have imagined. Donations, cards, texts, hugs, words of encouragement and filling seats at my shows. They carried me through the hardest season of my life with pure love. I will never forget it, and I pour that love back into every performance and every class I teach.
Above all, my husband Robert Cathers. My soulmate, my clown, the person I strive to be better for. In a world where I spend my days creating magic for others, he is the magic I get to come home to. His love is my anchor, his laughter is my medicine, and his belief in me sets me free.
Every gig, every client who takes a chance on hiring me, every festival-goer who becomes a jelly baby, every student who walks into my classes. They are all part of this story. I am simply the vessel. The light I EMIT is the collective.
Pricing:
- Hourly stilt walking- $250
- Dance performance/choreography-$150-350
- Private pilates- $75
- Hourly modeling-$35-50
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @emitarts
