Rebecca Weisser Cervantes has been teaching dance to kids and adults all over San Francisco since 1994. She started at the Mission YWCA teaching Hip Hop to Mission Girls, worked with adults at Rhythm & Motion, parents and their toddlers at the LGBT Center, and now teaches at schools throughout the districtand at The Marsh Youth Theater(MYT). She is the Executive Director of Moving Beyond Productions (MBP), a non-profit 501(c)3 that is devoted to bringing Dance and other art forms to underserved, economically disadvantaged kids throughout San Francisco.  Rebecca has a B.A. from UC Santa Cruz in Politics and studied Modern Dance throughout college. She studied African-Haitian at City College San Francisco, San Francisco State University and at studios in New York. She performs diverse forms of dance, including Hip Hop, Salsa, Hula, Modern, Kathak, and Jazz.  As co-director of Mixtiso Latin Hip Hop from 2002-2010, Rebecca performed and choreographed pieces for many diverse shows and venues. She choreographs, directs and sometimes performs with her advanced students from Moving Beyond Productions(MBP) at various events throughout San Francisco, and annually for Dia de los Muertos and Carnaval.

LEARNING IN LEADERSHIP

“I acknowledge my spheres of influence and am expanding them. I realized that I have the right and the responsibility to demand better teaching situations.”

I changed my focus from a singular project to an overall view of expanding my non-profit. Through Luna’s coaching guidance, my small project of trying to help Moscone Elementary School become more of a dance school to a deeper change in my way of doing business with the schools as a dance teaching artist. I become more empowered to use MOVING BEYOND productions (MBP) as my dance teaching business, rather than letting schools decide how to employ me. As a result of that shift, I am using MBP to help schools get funding for their programs. It is a win-win situation with the schools and my non-profit.