Marissa Hernandez grew up in Northern California and started her life in a dance studio. She studied ballet, tap, jazz, hip hop and belly dance until she found modern dance in college. From there she spent 15 years as a company dancer, associate choreographer and studio manager for The Movement Alliance Dance Theatre Company. She eventually found her way to creating the Bow-tie Beauties Burlesque Troupe and joined the Beyond Fire Tribe, a fire performance collective, where she met her husband, singer-songwriter-artist-farmer; Jeffrey Wanzer Dupra. Marissa has worked for several non-profit organizations including The Center for the Arts, Grass Valley Downtown Association and the Miners Foundry in Nevada City. In 2014 she became ITT Pilates certified and managed the Center of Movement Functional Fitness studio until 2019. Marissa has produced many types of events including but not limited to street fairs, concerts, dance performances and theater productions. In the summer of 2019 Marissa, her husband and two kids relocated to northern new york and now reside in the Adirondack Park. She owns, with her husband, Little Big Farm in Sugar Bush, teaches dance at The Dance Sanctuary in Saranac Lake, is a proud member of Strangers in the Park and is the Executive Director of BluSeed Studios a community arts center also in Saranac Lake. She has been at BluSeed since May of 2020.