Brandi Coleman is an assistant professor in the Division of Dance at Southern Methodist University where she teaches Jump Rhythm® Technique, a jazz-rhythm-based movement approach that transforms the moving body into a rhythm-driven percussion instrument. She was a performing member, rehearsal director and associate artistic director of Jump Rhythm Jazz Project (JRJP), a Chicago-based dance company founded by Billy Siegenfeld. She received an Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Excellence on Camera/Performer for her work in the Emmy Award-winning documentary, Jump Rhythm Jazz Project: Getting There, and has toured nationally and internationally with JRJP to Finland, Italy and Canada.

As a teaching and creative artist, she has led more than forty choreographic and teaching residencies at universities nationwide and internationally. Her pedagogy and creative work honor the foundational and fundamental relationship between jazz music and jazz dance. Her choreography has been presented at venues across the United States and internationally at the Aratani Theatre (Los Angeles), Newport Jazz Festival (Newport), Decidedly Jazz Danceworks (Canada), Southern Theater (Minneapolis), Links Hall (Chicago), New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, River Center Theatre for the Performing Arts (Baton Rouge), the Winspear Opera House, Moody Performance Hall and the Eisemann Center for Performing Arts (Dallas), SUNY Brockport, James Madison University, Salve Regina University, Northwestern University, Stephens College, Carthage College, University of Dubuque, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Southern Methodist University.

Her writing, “Performing Gender: Disrupting Performance Norms for Women in Jazz Dance Through Gender-Inclusive, Human-Centric Choreography,” is included in the book Rooted Jazz Dance: Africanist Aesthetics and Equity in the Twenty-First Century (University Press of Florida, 2022). She earned a Master of Fine Arts in Performing Arts: Choreography from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.