Teresa is the New York City Coaches Coordinator and a Social Circus Instructor for Cirque du Monde, the social outreach arm of Cirque du Soleil. In addition, she designs and teaches private aerial dance workshops for both adults and young people. Her instruction experience also includes frequent appearances as a guest teacher for EarSay’s Cross Cultural Dialogue Through the Arts, in which college students collaborate with recent immigrants at The Queens International High School to create original theater. She was very excited to sub her first CircusYoga class at Jennifer Brilliant Yoga in Brooklyn just a few weeks ago!

Teresa Kochis holds a BA in Visual Arts and Aerial Dance from New York University’s Gallatin School for Individualized Study. She first began studying aerial circus arts at The Horizon Circus School in Atlanta, GA under Carrie Heller. Since then, she has studied at various schools/places including annual Cirque du Soleil-sponsored training for social circus instructors; La Arena in Buenos Aires, Argentina; La Caserne in Montreal; Nimble Arts in Vermont and SLAM in Brooklyn. She studies modern dance at Dance New Amsterdam. 

Teresa has received support from the Bronx Museum of the Arts’ and The Point CDC’s Collaborative Arts Project: Action Lab, MudBone theater company, the Bronx Council on the Arts and the Shoolman Foundation to produce original work. She has also performed with groups including White Wave Dance, Airelise, Cirque Boom and the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus. Her performance has taken her to venues including Dance Theater Workshop, Joe’s Pub, The Joyce Soho, P.S. 122, Live From the Edge Theater, BRIC, The Queens Museum of the Arts and festivals including the NYC International Dance Festival, the Cool NY Festival, the DUMBO Dance Festival, the Kites on Ice Festival in Madison, Wisconsin and the Minnesota Fringe Festival.