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Ishmael
Houston-Jones is a Choreographer, Author, Performer, Teacher, and Arts Consultant.
Ishmael Houston-Jones'
improvised dance and text work has been performed in New York City, across the United States, in Europe, Canada, Australia
and Latin America.
Ishmael Houston-Jones' Nowhere, Now Here was commissioned for Mordine and Company
in Chicago in spring 2001 and Specimens was commissioned
for Headlong Dance Theater in Philadelphia in 1998.
In 1997 he was the choreographer for Nayland Blake's
Hare Follies at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. From 1995-2000
he was part of the improvised trio "Unsafe/ Unsuited"
with Keith Hennessy and Patrick
Scully. In 1990 he and writer Dennis Cooper presented The Undead at the Los Angeles
Festival of the Arts. In 1989 he collaborated with filmmaker Julie Dash on the video Relatives, which was aired
nationally on the PBS series Alive From Off-Center (Alive TV).
In 1984 Houston-Jones and Fred Holland shared a New York Dance and Performance "Bessie Award”
for their Cowboys, Dreams and Ladders.
COLLABORATORS
In addition to those listed
above, major collaborators have been
• dancers Steven Craig and Stanya Kahn; • directors Peter Brosius and Daniel Safer; • designers Huck Snyder and
John DeFazio;
• photographer Robert Flynt;
• videographer Cathy
Weis,
• and composers Chris Cochrane,
Fast Forward, Dave Pavkovik, Chris Peck, Tom Recchion, Leslie Ross and Guy Yarden.
• He has appeared in the work of John Bernd, Ping Chong, DANCENOISE, Terry Fox, Beth Gill, Lionel Popkin, Mike Taylor, Yvonne Meier, and in the films Brother from Another Planet
by John Sayles and Circle's
Short Circuit by Caspar Strache.
He is a member of the Brooklyn Adult Recorder Choir.
PUBLICATIONS
Houston-Jones' essays, fiction, interviews, and performance texts have been anthologized in the books:
• Conversations on Art and Performance (Johns
Hopkins, 1999);
• Footnotes: Six Choreographers Inscribe the Page (G+B Arts, 1998);
• Caught in the Act: A Look at Contemporary
Multi-Media Performance (Aperture, 1996);
• Aroused,
A Collection of Erotic Writing (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2001);
• Best Gay Erotica 2000 (Cleis Press, 2000);
• Best American Gay Fiction, volume 2 (Little Brown, 1997);
•
and Out of Character: Rants, Raves and Monologues from Today’s Top Performance Artists (Bantam, 1996).
• He is a subject of the chapter "Speech as Act" in the book Dances that Describe Themselves by Susan
Leigh Foster (Wesleyan University Press, 2002). • and the chapter "Crossing the Great
Divides" in the book Taken by Surprise by Ann Cooper Albright and David Gere, (Wesleyan University Press, 2003).
• His work has also been published in the magazines:
Movement Research Journal; Contact Quarterly; Real Time; Mirage, FARM; and Porn Free.
TEACHING
Ishmael Houston-Jones is currently a part-time professor at Eugene Lang College, The New School of Liberal
Arts and at Sarah Lawrence College. He has been a guest teacher at:
• the European Dance Development Center and
the School for New Dance Development in Holland,
• La Escuela de Danza Nacional in Nicaragua,
• El Instituto
de la Danza Moderna in Caracas, Venezuela,
• the School of the Art Institute of Chicago,
• the American
Dance Festival at Duke University,
• the London International Summer School 2002, (Greenwich Dance Agency, Chisenhale
Dance Space and Independent Dance),
• the Seattle Festival of Alternative Dance and Improvisation (SFADI),
•
Movement Research, (New York),
• Moving On Center, (San Francisco), • Urban Bush Women Summer Institute at Florida State University, •
Hollins University, (Virginia), •
University of California, Los Angeles -- UCLA, • Bennington College, (Vermont),
• University of Memphis,
• New York
University, (Tisch School of the Arts and the Experimental Theater Wing),
• Wesleyan University, (Connecticut);
• and at numerous Performing Arts Festivals worldwide.
FUNDING
The work of Ishmael Houston-Jones has been supported by grants and fellowships from:
• the
National Endowment for the Arts,
• the New York Foundation for the Arts,
• the New York State Council
on the Arts,
• the Ford Foundation,
• and Art Matters, Inc.
CURATING
Ishmael Houston-Jones has served as curator for the following:
• He is the current DraftWork
works-in-progress series curator for the Danspace Project New York,
• Festival of New Swiss Dance as part of New
Europe 1999, The Swiss Institute, New York,
• Guest curator for Mad Alex Presents reading series, New York, 1998,
• Dive In Festival of Dance Improvisation, Danspace Project at , New York, 1993-95,
• Parallels Festival
of New Black Dance, Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church, New York, 1982.
BOARDS
• From 1984 until 2009 Ishmael Houston-Jones served on the Board of Directors of the Danspace Project
at Saint Mark's Church and was its president from 1999-2003.
• He is currently the vice-president of the Board of
Directors of Movement Research in New York and was its president 2006 - 2009. • He is currently the Chair of the Board of Directors
of Ashley Anderson Dances, Salt Lake City, UT. • He served on the Board of Headlong Dance Theater in Philadelphia for 15
years.
• He is on the Artists Advisory Committee of Performance Space 122.
• He is on the Advisory Board
of Moving on Center in San Francisco. ARTS CONSULTANT
Ishmael Houston-Jones has served as a panelist for:
• the National Endowment for the
Arts, (Choreography Fellowship and Inter-Arts),
• the New York Foundation for the Arts, (Choreography Fellowship),
• State Arts Councils for Ohio, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, and Massachusetts;
• the
Pew Fellowship in the Arts,
• Urban Artist Initiative,
• Dance Theater Workshop,
• Arts International Inc,
• the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council,
• the Multi-Arts
Production (MAP) Fund,
• New Steps Choreographers' Series, • and others
OTHER
Ishmael Houston-Jones was the Coordinator for the Lambent
Fellowship in the Arts of the Tides Foundation from 2002 - 2007. In this capacity he developed and implemented a program
that awards multi-year grants to individual visual and performing artists in metropolitan New York City. Fellowships totaling
$126,000 were awarded to six artists yearly. A partial list of artists funded through this program headed by Ishmael Houston-Jones includes
Elana Herzog, Deborah Grant, Mary Ting, Nicolas Dumit Estevez, Bradley McCallum &
Jacqueline Tarry, Emily Jacir, Yoko Inoue, John Jasperse, Cathy Weis, Sanford Biggers, Patty Chang, Yvonne Meier, Julie Atlas
Muz, Sekou Sundiata (RIP), Ricardo Miranda Zuniga, Ivan Monforte, Miguel Gutierrez, Judi Werthein, Jennifer Monson, and Swoon.
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