Ph.D. Education, Capella University

M.F.A., Dance, Mills College

B.A. Dance, Mills College

Six Thumbs Dance Theatre

Welcome to my website!

Dance. Yoga. Meditation. Tai Chi. Fitness. Wellness. I'm interested in the creative and healing aspects of movement and the sense of community that develops in movement classes and production projects. I enjoy working with people of all ages and am currently teaching classes that cultivate skill and wellness across the lifespan. 

Recently certified to teach Tai Chi for Arthritis and Fall Prevention, I look forward to offering the program to my current and future students. Research has shown that the gentle movements of the program are effective in relieving pain and improving health and balance.

I spent the years during the pandemic doing things to keep myself and those around me sane and moving forward in life. I was certified as a Love Your Brain Yoga teacher, a form of yoga focused on teaching  those who have been impacted by traumatic brain injuries. I becaming  a certified Tai Chi Chih teacher, an Accessible Yoga Ambassador, completied the ACEs Aware/Toxic Stress certification, and studied mindfulness with Mindful Schools. I've incorporated all of these learnings into my  teaching. I also started offering yoga, relaxation, and mindful cardio classes via zoom on a pay-what-you-can basis, as a way to facilitate a sense of community and and to keep us all moving during and beyond quarantine. 

Dr. Jeanne-Marie Hughes (me!) holds a Ph.D in Education and an MFA in Dance, and has been teaching at City College of San Francisco (CCSF) since 1989. Courses taught include: Modern Dance; Jazz Dance; Ballet; Ballroom Dance; Salsa and Latin American Dances; International Folk Dance; European Folk Dance; CCSF Dance Repertory Company, Dance Production (Modern, Ballroom, Folk, Salsa); Dance History; Analysis of Folk, Social and Ballroom Dance; Teaching Movement (A lecture class for future dance, PE, and yoga teachers); all levels of Yoga; Intensive Yoga; Yoga Movement; Aerobics; Resistance Training; and, Body Sculpting.

For over 30 years, Jeanne (pronounced "Jeannie") has organized and hosted several multicultural dance performances, parties, workshops, and festivals each year at CCSF. Examples of these events include: The Blossom International Folk Dance Festival; The San Francisco Free Folk Festival; The SF Kolo Dance Festival; AXIS Dance Company Workshop and Performance; Colombian Ethnic Dance Workshops; Romanian Dance Workshops; Alaskan Dance Workshop; Dances for All Ages Workshops; and, Filipino Dance Workshop. Each semester, for over 25 years, she has  produced the CCSF Salsa and/or Ballroom Dance Party, and, the CCSF Low-Tech Dance Performance, an informal performance featuring dance work by CCSF faculty, students, and alum. Jeanne directed Working, an ongoing dance performance series presenting the work of CCSF dance students, alum, and other local choreographers. She was the Faculty Advisor of Shall We Dance, a CCSF partner social dance club and the Latin and Social Dance Club.

In response to student interest, Jeanne, an Integral Yoga certified yoga instructor, authored the CCSF Certificate of Accomplishment in Yoga Instruction and directed the program as a volunteer for two years. For this certificate program, she created a new course, Teaching Movement, designed to help future dance, yoga, and PE teachers gain a foundation in the theory and practice of teaching movement to students of all ages. To assist students in gaining experience as yoga teachers she sponsored and supervised a series of student-led yoga workshops which were free to the community. These included: Yoga taught in Spanish, Family Yoga, Yoga Taught in Italian, and Restorative Yoga.

Jeanne has taught at San Francisco State University (SFSU) since 1990. She currently teaches Kinesiology 257: Fitness, Wellness, and the Global Perspective, a course for which students study  physical activities from around the world, methods of cultivating personal wellness, and  global public policies related to wellness. Previous courses taught include Ballroom Dance, Yoga, Aerobics, Step Aerobics, Posture, and Personal Fitness Programming.

There is more to tell about Jeanne...like all of the work she's done with kids, her research and lived experiences about what keeps college students in school, her role as a wedding officiant, yoga classes for infertility and neo-natal death, her choreographic works, and the 10 years she directed a dance company...but, that's all for now.