Meet Jesse Ocampo | Dancer, Applied Medical & Embodiment Anthropologist, Dance Educator, Health Equity & DEI Consultant, Social Media Manager

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jesse Ocampo and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jesse, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I feel like I have always struggled trying to find “professional” infrastructure that I could “fit in”. Whether it was being a dance educator, a dance studio manager, a researcher in academic settings, or even just in retail- the expectations of capitalist culture never sit well in me. The hustle culture and taking workplace abuse from exploitative business owners truly made me feel like I was never going to be able to keep a steady job. I always felt like I was the problem and I brought too much conflict, or that my mental health would restrict me from pursuing a “professional” career. But as I grew in understanding workplace cultures and DEI work, I noticed that I was just trying to maneuver through a system that wasn’t built to support being human and being empathetic. So I started Reel Co. SMM. Reel Co. is my social media management business that prides itself off of digital space decolonization and ethically building online communities through the use of applied anthropological/ethnographic research skills. It was a way for me to be in charge of my own hours, have a creative outlet through ethical marketing and content design, and support small business owners and LGBTQIA2S+ and BIPOC owned businesses/creatives while also utilizing my skills in social science research.

Although being a social media manager seems disconnected from my work as an embodiment researcher and movement artist, my main pillar in my SMM work is building skills in disembodying capitalist culture through accessible movement healing and embodiment education. I always try to input my knowledge in movement and movement healing in all my professional work, I think that in an industry that lives completely online, my work in embodiment shows that I am here to remind my partners that IG is a time and space reduction tool for human connection, not a substitution.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I have been a dancer for eighteen years, a dance educator for twelve years, and a movement and embodiment researcher for a little bit over three years. My journey through dance definitely was not easy and has actually been an ongoing battle since the beginning. Being a brown body in a westernized dance form- my little 4ft 10in Filipino body had to deal with being compared to my taller and longer white teammates where competitive dance studio pedagogy, choreography, and costuming is designed for those bodies and disregards the needs for dancers of color. I also dealt with a lot of racism, classism, and psychological abuse as a competitive dancer. Causing me to develop clinical anxiety, severe depression, and anorexia nervosa at a very young age. I lived in a single-parent income household where my mom worked graveyard in the healthcare system and for a while living unemployed, so I started working at the age of twelve to pay for tuition by teaching dance classes, choreographing pieces, and rhinestoning dance costumes. Because of all the work I was doing as a middle schooler and early high schooler I had really poor grades and was too mentally exhausted to prioritize school work. I even remember being told by friends and studio director that it was a good thing I was good at dancing because that was the only way I would get into college. Luckily, as I dig deeper into my decolonization journey, embodiment research, and connect to communities within the Filipinx Diaspora, I am able to find some dance communities and friends that remind me the healing movement provides and am always learning to love and forgive myself and what I endured on my dance journey.

As an adult, who is now graduating with a Masters degree in applied medical anthropology – studying dance/movement therapy, embodied DEI workshop curating for professionals, and alternative “thoughtful learning” pedagogy strategies- I know my work is 100% rooted in my trauma but also my love for movement and dance. Dance has the power to quite literally move individuals and communities into healing. I have learned that it all depends on where we choose to place ourselves socio-culturally, that that will be the environment our souls and minds will embody. Our socio-political system is so broken. Our political infrastructures are working directly against us to destroy our bodies, souls, and environment. Encouraging us to disconnect from ourselves and all other human beings. Trying to make us desensitized to the genocides (free Palestine and all our sisters and brothers indigenous to occupied land) our political and educational institutions are funding. But it is once we all return to our bodies through art, movement, and community that we can find our collective heart beat, and follow it, that we can heal together.

In the future, I hope to continue my work in embodiment research, arts pedagogy, and healing. I want to create spaces for creatives of all ages, levels, and mediums to explore their minds and voices in a safe environment and to offer them the tools to heal themselves and their communities.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Wauw. I don’t go out much so this is a little hard hehe but I’ll give my favorite places in Long Beach on a list! 🙂

Free things : Yoga On the Bluff (Bixby Park), Paddle Boarding through Naples, Picnic at Bluff Park

Shopping : Walk down Retro Row fourth st. for thrift shopping! 🙂

Events/Community Spaces : Kubo Long Beach & the Pacific Island Ethnic Arts Museum

Matcha Date: Ground Hideout Coffee, Wood Co. Coffee, Stereoscope, Alder & Sage

Food Date : Cassidy’s Corner Cafe (Bixby Knolls), The Win-Dow (Second St), El Barrio Cantina (Fourth St), Spicy Sugar (Broadway), Rim Talay (Naples),

Drinks/Dancing: Fourth Horseman (Downtown), Mezcalero (Broadway)

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I think I would love to give recognition and big love to my parents and my partner, Fabian, who have consistently encouraged me to just simply be, and that that is more than enough 🙂

I want to give the hugest thank you to my dance teacher, life mentor, and adopted mother – Kristin McCollum Lee. She saw a young, passionate, but very anxious and insecure girl and offered her an endless amount of love and support in her journey as an artist and as a human. I do not think that I would have had the compassion and patience as an educator or human being if she did not show young me that there are authoritative figures that are safe people to confide in and to lean on. She is what inspires me to pursue a future in the arts, arts education, and healing through movement. It is an honor to be her chosen daughter and big sister to my loving and intelligent siblings.

Instagram: @managedby.reelco / @hess_da_mess

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesse-ocampo-603958304/

Image Credits
Fabian Lugo
@static.fcus

Kate Whitney
@kate.develops