The music drives her choreographed movements. Sweat begins to trace her back as all the pieces of her puzzle make one cohesive product.

This is where senior Isabella (Izzy) Jones feels “complete.”

Upon deciding to join a “random” dance class in 6th grade, Jones discovered her natural ability to dance.

“It was like a contemporary, modern-style class, and I fell in love with it, and so I decided to try out for the Pin Oak Company, Pin Oak’s official dance team.” Jones said. “But COVID hit, and they didn’t have a company or crew in seventh grade, so I joined this hip-hop class, and that is where I met Mr. Rivera.”

Hip-hop dance teacher Joel Rivera played a pivotal role in Jones’ trajectory of dance, recognizing Jones as a talented dancer, and encouraging her to go further with it. That hip-hop class alone unlocked a genre away from contemporary that Jones felt confident in.

“He was a teacher, but he became like my dad,” Jones said. “He told me to try out for crew, so I tried out at the end of seventh grade. And then I was on crew, eighth grade. I loved it so much. I actually became captain at the end of the year because I liked to lead rehearsals sometimes.”

As her time as a leader at Pin Oak was wrapping up, Jones knew she wanted to continue dancing in high school—it was just a matter of where.

“We got connected with this team called Inertia Dance Company with Westside. And it was, like, my dream to go to that school,” Jones said. “My family was going to move over there, and Mr. Rivera was on it, so that was a big reason why I wanted to join.”

Inertia looked promising for Jones because of their award-winning dances, phenomenal reputation and Mr. Rivera’s familiar face.

That was until she met Michi, a dancer with Bellaire’s Emotion Dance Company.

“Michi was one of the judges for auditions for hip-hop crew leader at Pin Oak” Jones said. “To try out for the crew, we had to learn a dance and do it for three judges because, since because Mr. Rivera had already taught me, it’d be unfair if he conducted the auditions for crew leader, since he already knew half of us. Those judges were very intimidating, but I fell in love with them.”

Michi opened the door to Emotion. Bellaire’s company was immediately compelling for Jones as they offered the genre of dance that she was most gravitated towards—hip-hop.

“In my eighth grade year, we actually saw a modern Emotion performance of Cell Block Tango,” Jones said. “That solidified it for me.”

Although Emotion wasn’t what she anticipated as her future, this company would forever leave a positive mark on Jones’ dance career.

“As soon as I joined it my freshman year, I made so many friends and I was like, this is the perfect fit for me,” Jones said. “It’s close to my house, I’ve already made so many friends, there’s so many officer positions that I can try out for, there’s so many dances that you can do and we get to put on like two shows a year and go to competitions. It’s perfect.”

Emotion quickly felt like home for Jones. Here, she found belonging, and a drive that was specific to when she was in the studio dancing.

“I think my favorite part about dance is that it’s exercise and art at the same time—you’re working out while making art,” Jones said. “It made me feel healthier in my body and it also made my brain flex its creative juices. It just makes me feel complete, like I have all the components of myself that I need to be whole.”

The love for her craft and leadership skills have not gone unnoticed among her dance mates, especially for sophomore hip-hop dancer Maahi Vaswani.

“Izzy will bring out the best version of yourself by helping you get ‘that one move’ for hours over and over even if it means she has to send you a video of her doing it nonstop,” Vaswani said. “When we are rehearsing, even though things can get stressful, she’ll make sure that everyone gets exactly what they need and she will push us hard but never to the point where we feel overwhelmed.”

For Vaswani, she has looked up to Jones since she was in 6th grade, attending Pin Oak Middle School herself.

“I saw her dancing and I aspired to be just like her,” Vaswani said. ”She’s been a role model for me for the past five years and continues to inspire me everyday. She makes a positive impact no matter where she goes.”

The high reward that Jones receives from being a leader in dance comes with high demand and sacrifice as well. During her competition season, between dance and Emotion, Jones dedicates 13 hours a week in the studio.

“When competition season rolls around for like a month, we’ll do four hour practices on Saturday. So it’ll be 10 hours a week plus Emotion. It turns into 13 hours a week of dance total. So it’s a lot. I definitely sacrifice my social life and relationships.
Like, I don’t have many friends outside of dance.”

In addition to the hours Jones dedicates to her craft, moments of doubt easily interfere with her passion. In the dance team that Jones competes with outside school, the Ruff Ryders at Soundbox Dance Studio, Jones is only one of 15 other seniors compared to two seniors in Emotion, making it easy for her to be swallowed among her teammates.

“I wasn’t getting the type of recognition that I wanted, but I also felt like I wasn’t at my A-game because I wasn’t there mentally—I was just having such a hard time feeling confident in myself,” Jones said. “The dissonance between my studio team and Emotion was starting to become too much and I couldn’t handle it. I started having panic attacks at practices and I would have to step out. It was just starting to become less about the art form and more about competing with my close friends on my studio team.”

Jones’ senior season was not like she anticipated, it being one of the “hardest” seasons she has gone through. Competition season concluded in October with her performance at World of Dance Houston.

“At the end of it all, when we went to competition, we got fourth place, and we’ve been the defending champions for the past three years,” Jones said. “So that was like the cherry on top of it all. It completely crushed me.”

Though defined by failure in Jones’ eyes originally, her outlook on the season changed, reminding her why she dedicated dozens of hours a week to this art form.

“After watching the video, I remembered how much fun I had on stage,” Jones said. “I remembered that at one of our rehearsals, I started crying while we were dancing because of how great dancing makes me feel, it was like such a movie moment. It’s like a toxic ex—no matter how much I hate dancing at the moment, it is always going to make me happy. I can never leave it.”

“I just kept remembering how I felt on stage. I even told my parents after that ‘I thought that was the best performance I’ve ever given,’” Jones said. “And they were like, ‘I could tell something was different.’”

Away from Jones’ senior season, Ruff Ryder teammate Kai Bascon, has found a “welcoming” comradeship since her early stages of her dance career. Bascon and Jones bonded over music taste and TV shows at the start of their friendship, and have been “attached at the hip” ever since.

“She has the ability to make people feel seen even in the most difficult situations,” Bascon said. “Izzy is empathetic as both a friend and a leader.”

Bascon also recognizes the obstacles that occur as a dancer, and moreover, what it takes to work in tandem with a team of dancers.

“We’ve struggled with assimilating into learning how others on the team move,” Bascon said. “As team dancers, it can be hard to adapt to new settings, new auditions and new directors.”

Though Jones has lived the hardships of dance, she has discovered choreographing for Emotion to be rewarding. Student choreographing and directing is something unique to Emotion Dance Company.

“In the spring show, when the emcees said, ‘here is ‘Blinding Lights’, choreographed by Isabella Jones,’ and the curtains opened and people got to see something that I made,” Jones said. “It just makes me happy that I can put my art out there.”

Jones’ choreographed pieces made it further than Bellaire’s auditorium when “Viva Las Vegas” was taken to the MA Dance Competition in her sophomore year. In comparison to a company like Inertia, where the competition dances are often choreographed by professionals, Jones has been recognized with the same awards when judged at competitions.

“Just with the fact that I was the only sophomore choreographer, we brought my fall show dance to competition and we won in the open category, and it just made me so happy,” Jones said.

Away from the recognition, Jones finds an outlet in seeing her artistic vision come to life.

“My path has changed ever since I became a choreographer my sophomore year because now I love architecting my own dances, not so much being a dancer,” Jones said. “I was saying this yesterday, it’s like the best feeling in the world when you have choreography in your mind and you teach it to people and they execute it the way that you had it in your head. This happened yesterday, and I was like, ‘you guys are so talented.’ It fills my heart.”

Jones is still grappling with what role dance will play in her life beyond high school, but for now, she loves the way it makes her feel, both physically and emotionally.

“I love feeling healthy, and dance builds up your stamina a lot because you’re dancing for like seven minutes at a time and you’re performing,” Jones said. You’re exerting yourself physically and emotionally to smile and put on this character at the same time. It just makes me feel fulfilled because I finally got to a point where I feel talented and I can execute something hard. It feels great.”