Marissa Barber is a Virginia native mover and shaker! She grew up in the mountains of Harrisonburg and has been dancing since she could walk! She attended James Madison University for Dance from 2009-2013 and eventually made her way over to the “River City” in 2016. Since university days, Marissa has continued training in New York, Europe, and the Pacific Northwest with incredible artists and choreographers. She danced professionally with Harrisonburg Dance Co-Op and RVA Dance Collective in VA from 2014-2019 while obtaining her teacher training certificate in the classical method of Pilates (2017). She’s proud to have had incredible one-on-one, hands on, training from the best training facility on the East Coast— Pilates804 located in Richmond! —she then continued her teaching at Pilates804 from 2017-2020. When life was shut down for covid, Marissa invested in her own fully-equipped home Pilates studio to find a way to still have meaningful connection to movement and bodies during that difficult time for our planet. Marissa then moved to NYC in 2022 searching for her place back in the world of dance after taking a performance hiatus. She dove head first into the non-profit world with Cora Dance Brooklyn—and continues to collaborate and work with them in NYC and at their Cora Dance Alleghany hub in VA! Movement is Marissa’s passion and movement is her very root into life. Healing bodies and spirits is her gift. Connecting people together gives her life. Giving back to the community is what she lives for. She’s incredibly excited to be on this part of her journey of bringing all her passions together under one roof! Her goal is to help facilitate creating a vessel for artists to learn and create and grow. A place where you come into your body and into your being. In community with other humans wanting the same. No matter your background. No matter your financial status. She wants to help train your bodies and minds and most importantly…. WANTS PEOPLE TO HAVE FUN. Enjoy moving and breathing and smiling and laughing at how good or how difficult something is! (This is about movement/This is not about movement…) She believes PLAY is the answer to a lot of life’s problems. And more dance. Always more dance. She’s excited you’re here on the journey with her.