Ishmael Houston-Jones

Embracing the awkward

In creating improvised movement work, either in solos or groups, it’s important to allow oneself to be curious and to go places that may not be familiar. Finding ways to explore this safely is key. Mistakes are opportunities for learning. Challenging oneself while at the same time prioritizing care, (of oneself and of a group,) can lead to exciting and unexpected discoveries. We will use Improvisation Techniques into creative art making.

Ishmael Houston-Jones’s biography:

Ishmael Houston-Jones is choreographer, author, performer, teacher, and curator. His improvised dance and text work has been performed worldwide. Drawn to collaboration as a way to move beyond boundaries and the known, Houston-Jones celebrates the political aspect of cooperation. He and Fred Holland shared a 1984 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for Cowboys, Dreams and Ladders, which reintroduced the erased narrative of the Black cowboy back into the mythology of the American west. He was awarded his second “Bessie” Award for the 2010 revival of THEM, his 1985/86 collaboration with writer Dennis Cooper and composer Chris Cochrane. In 2017 he received a third “Bessie” for Variations on Themes from Lost and Found: Scenes from a Life and other Works by John Bernd. Houston-Jones received a fourth “Bessie” in 2020 for Service to the Field of Dance.

As an author Houston-Jones’ essays, fiction, interviews, and performance texts have been published in several anthologies. His first book, FAT and other stories, was published in June 2018 by Yonkers International Press.

Houston-Jones is a 2022 recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. In 2024 he was awarded the Balasaraswati/Joy Ann Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching award from the American Dance Festival.His work has been supported by The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Herb Alpert Foundation, The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and William & Flora Hewlett Foundation.

September 1 – 5
Monday to Friday
10:00 – 13:00 and 14:30 – 17:30

Price:
80 € registration fee
360 € total

Location:
Tictac’s small studio

Photo by Ian Douglas.