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https://youtu.be/CaJVjSzomTw

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https://youtu.be/9G1kQiZksu8

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https://youtu.be/2rM8mDeFyBM

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Jacob Jonas is a 32 year old Los Angeles based extraordinary contemporary choreographer and co-founder of Jacob Jonas The Company with his life partner Jill Wilson. His first inspiration came from street-dancing, specifically a group called The Calypso Tumblers who we would join and train with for the first few years of his dance career. He was awarded the LA’s National Award of Performance Artist in 2012 along with the Capezio ACE award along with many other awards across the country. Being that he started his company when he was only 21 means that he hasn't been around that long but the impact he has made to the history of dance is inspiring for me and helps me explore new aspects of my creative aesthetic.

Jacob has cultivated an entirely different face for contemporary dance in the more commercially involved environment. He recently worked with Singer Rosalia and choreographed in collaboration her performance throughout her Motomami tour. Footage of these performances found on his website show a very similar movement style to his personal technique. Even though Jacob’s main background includes a strong hip-hop influence, the choreography in these performances have quite prominent aspects of modern dance. By working with someone of such a high profile in the pop music industry he has been able to expand contemporary dance to a more broad media and wider audience. I believe this contributes to the contemporary industry by opening doors for us carving space for contemporary dance to be seen as a more collaborative dance form especially in the right commercial settings.

Along with his influential work in photography including working with nude bodies still and live. He has a lovely way of enhancing the bodies and their capabilities when it comes to taking up space in a cultivated manner. To me, these photos have a neutral expression in a way where you are able to see people as beings and not tied to a personality and how these beings can interact in an almost non binary manner. He also indulges in videography and editing. His work has really inspired me to appreciate the nude body considering these photos are not taken in an explicit tone. Allowing you to look at them as bodies and those bodies as art.

Last summer I had the amazing opportunity to be able to meet and work with him and dancers from his company for a week at the summer intensive Orsolina 28. My life was forever changed after those 5 days. He pushed and challenged me mentally and physically in ways I would've never imagined. We started by each day 1 and ½ hour warm up and conditioning class. He had us doing drills, including hardcore full body cardio movements, intense pilates, climbing on our hands and knees, lunges, pushups, jumps, planks and lots of running. Even squats with someone on our shoulders. And in this case we were in northern Italy in the middle of July so it was 90 degrees and we were dancing in outdoor studios. My body was bruised, burnt, cut and extremely sore. It was a routine, so I knew what was coming when, I remember getting very anxious each time before we would run because it was a very intense section of our warm up. One morning one of the company members reminded us that this can be a meditation, use this as a way to clear your mind and prepare for the day. I was pushed beyond my limits, this feeling I will never forget. Next we worked on his technique. From my experience his work includes intricate movement isolations working separately on different body parts at the same time, like moving the head forward and back, side to side or in circles in varying speeds and initiatives. Extending your arms out from the toursue with a limp hand in different directions. Falling to the knees, stamping into and slapping the ground. This movement also works with body percussion and in partners. We would practice throwing ourselves onto the ground in a safe manner. I find it to be specific in the way where there is not one way to perform it can only be made from your authentic style, it is designed with the intention of invention. Each movement had a name, though I do not remember the exact ones.

At first, learning these moves felt extremely limiting and I was only allowing myself to do the movements in a way I had seen them. I wasn't until leaving that week where it felt comfortable enough in my body and I could begin to explore my own movement within this technique. Therefore throughout the duration of those 5 days I was lost in this uncertainty of what I was doing exactly, quite an uncomfortable experience. Especially considering my lack of self confidence as a dancer at that time. His technique is different in the form of his aesthetics and structure and was a challenge to process it all at once. He spoke a lot about this individual called the “underdog”, referring to those of us dancers who aren't necessarily trying to but always seem to be hidden. How we are never properly seen until we are, in that case we will make our mark at some point indefinitely. We are special and have something that nobody else does and we have to cherish that. All throughout my highschool experience I was constantly rejected and under looked. I knew I had what it took but I was never recognized, just mainly forgotten, by my teachers mostly. Because of this I've felt alienated within my peers in the studio, that my difference was a bad thing. But I actually have so much more to offer, I just need to find it and when I do people will see. As Jacob made these speeches I felt like he really understood me. After lunch we would move on to composition, this was the most challenging for me because I was having to channel the thing I was struggling with the most which was my own movement within his technique. At some point he had us all step to the side where the middle of the floor was empty and he was calling out for people who identified themselves as scared or insecure. And was inviting them into the space to do their solo which they had created earlier in the class. Eventually he noticed me for the anxious persona I was carrying and called me out to the center of the room all by myself to do my solo. He knew right away that all I was thinking about was what everyone else was thinking. He continued to encourage me to forget the people and just let myself dance fully, asking me to improve his movement vocabulary in front of everyone. He kept on stopping me because he said I wasn't dancing for myself, which was true and made me continue to dance until I was forced to free myself from the fear of judgment. This was a very vulnerable experience and the one where I realized that Jacob Jonas has the ability to change peoples lives. Lastly we learnt and rehearsed his repertoire. This particular piece we learned, he created during the time he had been diagnosed with cancer and was in the process of getting chemotherapy. It included a lot of repetition, stomping, collapsing all the way to the floor, falling to the knees and hands, and lots of walking. When teaching it to us he explained that each movement represented different symptoms he was experiencing while he was sick. I found this fascinating, he was able to really express the exhaustion by making the movement exhausting within itself so we the dancers would be experiencing the exhaustion throughout the peace and that is how it would come across to the audience. Something I found interesting was that he did not want us to use emotive facial expressions. He wanted our faces to stay neutral, really allowing the movement to speak for itself. Provoking the emotion of exhaustion.

Having the ability to work with Jacob Jonas completely changed who I was as a dancer, and even though I only spent 5 days training with him I still find his influence in my growth today. I also see myself working with photography and nude work as I progress as an artist. And collaborating with artists in the music industry in my future. Though he is not the first to bring contemporary dance into commercial pop culture, I have seen him do it in the present day and I see myself following in his footsteps.

Sources:

https://www.ladancechronicle.com/what-motivates-jacob-jonas-an-interview/

https://www.youthtothepeople.com/blog/to-the-people--youth-to-the-people/beautiful-people-jacob-jonas.html#:~:text=Jacob%20Jonas%20is%20the%20founder,and%20acrobatics%20to%20contemporary%20ballet.

https://www.jacobjonas.org/about