10 Performance Cabaret Artists to Know: 8. Daniel Alexander Jones (Jomama Jones)

Daniel Alexander Jones / Jomama Jones

Daniel Alexander Jones makes live art. He has dissolved boundaries and explored radical presence for over 20 years through his dynamic, interdisciplinary practice. His body of work is unified by its consistent regard for human complexity, its commitment to kindness and generosity at its core, and by its faith in the power of live art to foster empathic communication. Jones’s work is best described as Afromysticism. He is a significant contributor to the development of The Theatrical Jazz Aesthetic, Jones employs collaboration, risk and spontaneity in the crafting and presentation of his work.

Performing as his alter-ego Jomama Jones, Daniel tours the show, Radiate, created in collaboration with Dr. Bobby Halvorson. Radiate, which premiered at Soho Rep, has played in Minneapolis, Austin, Los Angeles and Boston and was a critics’ pick of the New York Times, Time Out New York, The New Yorker and Time Out Chicago, among others; was named on Hilton Als’s Best Of 2011 List for the New Yorker; and won a 2014 Austin Critics’ Table Award for best touring production. Jomama Jones has performed in concert at Joe’s Pub, Symphony Space, JACK, and Los Globos in LA. On the Aries Records imprint, Jomama Jones has released three CDs of original music, Lone Star, Radiate and Six Ways Home and a fourth album, Flowering, released January 2017. Daniel’s essay about the project, “The Radiant Desire of Jomama Jones” is featured in the Winter 2014 issue of TDR. Jomama Jones’s Black Light will run at Joe’s Pub as part of the Public Theater’s 2017-2018 Season.

Daniel received a 2015 Doris Duke Artist Award, among the most prestigious awards in the arts, in recognition of his risk-taking practice, and a 2016 USA Artist Fellow; he was also named an inaugural Mellon Foundation Creative Research Fellow at the University of Washington in Seattle for 2017-2019. He is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Fordham University in NYC, where he resides.

(Source: Bio and About on danielalexanderjones.com)

Photo: Angela Jimenez

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