Jessie Lee Thorne (she/they) is an award-winning filmmaker, choreographer, and creative producer originally from Los Angeles whose work lives at the intersection of dance, cinema, and physical storytelling. Holding a Master’s degree in Screendance, Thorne creates films and live performances that blur the line between stage and screen, positioning choreography as a primary narrative force. Her internationally recognized film Topia (2022), commissioned by Boston Moving Arts, received Best Dance Film at the Paris Play Film Festival and Indie Short Fest, as well as the Visionary Award at the kNOwBOX Dance Film Festival.

Thorne has collaborated with major institutions including Universal Pictures, The Getty Museum, TED, and Nowness, as well as musicians RY X, Banks, Bishop Briggs, Emmitt Fenn, and David Archuleta. Her commissioned works span evening-length productions and dance films for organizations such as The Boston Conservatory, Backhausdance, and MashUp Dance Company. A founding producer of DanceFest LA and creator of Performance Lab—an incubator for emerging and international artists—Thorne builds platforms that champion experimentation, equity, and cultural exchange. Her performance career includes 7 years of international touring with Micaela Taylor’s The TL Collective and appearances on major stages such as Lincoln Center, Tel Aviv Opera House, and Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts.

Whether directing films, choreographing live performances, or producing interdisciplinary platforms, she creates transformative experiences that invite audiences not merely to watch, but to feel, inhabit, and connect.

“Thorne’s work bridges the poetic and the visceral, dissolving the line between screen and stage. It is dance as cinema, cinema as choreography.”