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Kim Jones
Internationally, Jones has presented her choreography at the Pietrasanta International Dance Festival (Pietrasanta, Italy), Teatro Astra and Teatro Alfa (Turin, Italy) and Drachengasse Theater (Vienna, Austria). Nationally, she has presented her work at Center Stage (Santa Barbara, CA), Baryshnikov Arts Center (NYC), Swing Space (NYC) and regionally for the North Carolina Dance Festival Tour, the North Carolina Dance Alliance, and North Carolina Dance Theater II (now Charlotte Ballet II).
In 2012-2013, Jones reconstructed Martha Graham’s Imperial Gesture (1935), supported by a UNC Charlotte Faculty Research Grant. The work received its premiere in January 2013 at the Knight Theater in Charlotte in a performance by the Martha Graham Dance Company (MGDC) presented by the College of Arts + Architecture. Imperial Gesture had its New York City premiere at the Joyce Theater in February 2013 and is now in repertory with MGDC. The costume reconstruction of Imperial Gesture was displayed in the Dance and Fashion exhibition at the museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. In May 2016, Jones performed Imperial Gesture at the 92nd Street Y in New York City.
Jones’s article, “American Modernism: Reimagining Martha Graham’s Lost Imperial Gesture (1935),” was the cover article of the December 2015 issue of Dance Research Journal, published by the Congress on Research in Dance. Her chapter, “Transmission as Process and Power in Graham’s Chronicle (1936),” appears in the book Transmissions in Dance: Contemporary Staging Practices, published in 2017 by Palgrave.
In 2016, Jones reconstructed Paul Taylor’s Tracer (1962), a collaboration with the artist Robert Rauschenberg (set and costumes), which had not been categorically archived and had no historical video, audio, or first-hand oral record. Jones and the Department of Dance received a 2016 Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for the support of this project. Read a New York Times article about her process.
Tracer was set on Taylor 2 Dance Company members, who performed it at UNC Charlotte on September 30, 2016, and again in New York City at the 92nd Street Y on December 16, 2016, where it was reviewed by New York Times chief dance critic Alastair Macaulay. Tracer has been accepted into the Taylor 2 Dance Company repertory and continues to receive further performances.
Jones has also brought masterworks to students at UNC Charlotte. She received a 2010-2011 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) American Masterpieces grant to restage Martha Graham’s Primitive Mysteries (1931) on dance students. Jones has also restaged student performances of Graham’s Panorama (1935), performed on the January 2013 concert with MGDC, and Steps in the Street (1936), which received a Charlotte performance with MGDC in January 2015 and a Joyce Theater (NYC) performance in February 2015 as part of the MGDC University Partners Showcase. UNC Charlotte students also learned Taylor’s Tracer and performed the work throughout the 2017 year at UNC Charlotte and in educational outreach programs in area high schools.
Jones received her MFA summa cum laude from Florida State University and her BFA from Marymount Manhattan College. In 2013, she received the Board of Governors’ Teaching Award for the College of Arts + Architecture. For the 2018-2019 academic year, Jones served as the UNC Charlotte Resident Director at Kingston University, London, U.K.
In 2017, Jones founded Movement Migration, a company of professional dancers steeped in the celebrated traditions of classical ballet and modern dance. The company, with dancers, who span four decades in age and hail from across the globe, offers an innovative approach to live performance and dance education dedicated to access, inclusion, and community building. Read about Movement Migration in this Niner Times article.
