Elsie Semmes

Visual Art – New Orleans

With an extensive background in dance and a long list of immersive world travels, Elsie Semmes is both a professional visual artist and a professional performer/instructor in the city of New Orleans. Her dance studies include fifteen years of professional ballet training from Giacobbe Academy of Dance, Delta Festival Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Boston Ballet, Academy of Colorado Ballet, and Colorado Ballet Company. She was hired to the Colorado Ballet Company in 2007 at age 17. Among her six years of more diverse and creative studies are flamenco, salsa, lindy hop, hip-hop, break dance, New Orleans second line, West African, Caribbean and contemporary. Her studies in tap, jazz, and character had been interspersed throughout her ballet career. She now teaches a personalized form of funk, and is hired to perform anything from funk, to second line, to contemporary. Ms. Semmes is also a working visual artist. Her paintings have shown in several venues throughout New Orleans, including featured pieces at Ariodante Gallery on Julia St. for the celebrated yearly White Linen Night. She has shown at restaurants such as Surrey’s Café and Juice Bar, the Warehouse Grill, and the Crescent City Brew House, and at various creative venues such as Young Aspirations Young Artists, and at Eiffel Society in collaboration with a fellow dancer. Ms. Semmes has traveled far and wide to pursue her passions, including throughout Europe and the Caribbean, the US, and to Peru and Guyana in South America.