Alyssa Stover (she/her) is New Orleans-based dancer, teacher, and scholar. She began her dance training in Austin, TX at Tapestry Dance Company and the McCallum High School Fine Arts Academy, studying ballet, modern, jazz, and tap. She went on to earn a BFA, cum laude, in Dance and History at Tulane University in New Orleans, LA, performing with Newcomb Dance Company in works by Barbara Hayley, Michaela Cannon, John Allen, Alice Pascal Escher, Beverly Trask, and Kitty Daniels. She later earned an MA in Dance Theories & Practices at University of North Carolina-Greensboro, studying pedagogy, critical dance studies, and somatics with Dr. Jill Green, Cynthia Ling Lee, and Dr. Ana Paula Höfling, and performing in works by BJ Sullivan, Jess Shell, Caroline Althof, and Stephany Rayburn. She is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Dance at Ohio State University with a graduate minor in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

Her dissertation explores New Orleans neo-burlesque through the lens of vintage nostalgia, analyzing how nostalgic narratives construct the city as an “othered” space removed from American modernity, and how neo-burlesque performers—especially queer and BIPOC artists—resist these narratives, creating spaces of agency and resistance. She broadly explores how queer, trans, and BIPOC burlesque dancers in the United States, particularly the South, create performances that challenge dominant cultural narratives and use burlesque as a site of political critique and resistance. Her research spans dance studies, pop culture studies, history, queer and feminist theory.

Alyssa holds an RYT 200 hour yoga teaching certification from Wild Lotus Yoga and has trained in ballet, modern, jazz, and improvisation. She has extensive experience teaching yoga, ballet, pointe, classical variations, jazz, and contemporary dance to students ages 6-75. Before beginning her doctoral studies, she was an adjunct professor of dance in the Department of Theatre Arts & Dance at Loyola University New Orleans, taught yoga for the Tulane University Campus Recreation department and the New Orleans Jewish Community Center. She has taught dance for adults and children at the New Orleans Dance Academy and Loyola Preparatory Arts Program. She also coached and taught private lessons for teens and adults.

Alyssa has performed and choreographed extensively in the New Orleans dance community. She choreographed several works for D’Project, a New Orleans contemporary dance company, and co-produced and directed multiple shows in venues across New Orleans, including the Allways Lounge, Art Klub, and the Valiant Theatre, among others.

She has performed with Ballet Hysell, D’Project, Loyola Ballet, and Komenka Ethnic Dance Ensemble, as well as as an independent artist. She has performed all over the United States, as well as traveled abroad to Italy, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.