FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — New York Live Arts’ Live Feed creative residency and commissioning program presents Jomama Jones’s Celestial Holiday Spectacular by acclaimed theater artist Daniel Alexander Jones, Friday, December 3rd, at 5:00pm, in the Live Arts 3rd Floor Performance Studios. Jones’s alter ego Jomama Jones and friends, performance artist and vocalist Helga Davis and multi-instrumentalist Josh Quat, host this celebratory in-person gathering, featuring a live musical set from Jones’s new album ATEN. Alongside some exciting games and prizes, Jones will also guide guests together to create a real-time altar in honor of the shifting of the season and the completion of a challenging year. Various ticket levels include limited items for takeaway, including a copy of the digital album, photo with Jomama, and a voucher for a vinyl copy of the record.
When entering the event space, guests will also be greeted by an altar installation that Jones has created specifically for Live Arts’ 3rd floor studio lobby, which will remain on view throughout the rest of this year. Objects in the altar include photographs, jewelry from the collection of Jomama Jones, everyday ceremonial objects from the collection of Daniel Alexander Jones, and objects gathered specifically for this installation. There are also some paintings by Jones and by visual artists Tonya Engel [“Love”, and “Flowering” (the album-cover portrait of Jomama from 2016)]; Bridget Carpenter ["No."]; and Todd Christopher Jones [“Raziel”]. This altar was conceived by Daniel Alexander Jones and built by Jones with assistance from Beth Golison.
Featuring fifteen original songs by Jones and Quat, the new album ATEN was released digitally in September 2021 kicking off weekly music video releases for each song since. The album is one of many pieces in Jones’s latest work, ALTAR NO. 1 – ATEN, which uses our solar system as both metaphor and method for an immersive journey through the celestial, within and without. The work invites audiences to take part in a dynamic new creative odyssey through the ever-expanding digital portal aten.life. In addition to the music videos, ALTAR NO. 1 – ATEN contains a series of probing podcast conversations with special guests and invitations for visitors to engage on and offline.
New York Live Arts’ Live Feed commission and residency program is a laboratory for the development of new work and offers a sneak peek into each artist’s process and ideas before their creations hit the stage. ALTAR NO. 1 is commissioned by The Public Theater, and created with support from CalArts Center for New Performance and New York Live Arts’ Live Feed Residency, with funding from Rockefeller Brothers Fund, National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, and the Partners for New Performance. ALTAREDSTATES is made possible with generous support from the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Theater Project, with lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and additional support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Additional support provided by the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab. Produced by CalArts Center for New Performance.
This performance is not open for review. Press is welcome to attend for research purposes.
DANIEL ALEXANDER JONES
Daniel Alexander Jones exemplifies the artist-as-energy worker. His wildflower body of original work includes plays, performance pieces, recorded music, concerts, music theatre events, essays, and long-form improvisations. He explores the esoteric and the everyday through his own distinctive dramaturgy. Jones’s critically acclaimed pieces include Radiate (Soho Rep and National Tour; Black Light (Public Theater, Greenwich House Theatre, American Repertory Theatre, Penumbra Theatre); Duat (Soho Rep); An Integrator’s Manual (La MaMa, etc. and Fusebox Festival). Jones has recorded six albums of original songs as his alter-ego, Jomama Jones. Daniel’s current project, www.aten.life, significantly expands his digital media presence. He has been a part of arts communities in New York City, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Austin, Boston, and Los Angeles, where he bases his practice. Jones directed world-premieres of new plays and performance pieces by E. Patrick Johnson, Erik Ehn, Renita Martin, and Shay Youngblood, among others.
He is a company member of Penumbra Theatre Company in St. Paul; an associate company member of Pillsbury House Theatre in Minneapolis; an alumnus of New Dramatists and was a company member of Frontera@Hyde Park Theatre in Austin.
NEW YORK LIVE ARTS
We acknowledge that New York Live Arts is located on the ancestral homeland of the Lenape people in New York City. We acknowledge and pay respect to the Lenape people and to all Indigenous people past, present and future, here and everywhere. New York Live Arts produces and presents dance, music and theater performances in its 20,000 square-foot home, including a 184-seat theater and two 1,200 square-foot studios. New York Live Arts offers an extensive range of participatory programs for adults and young people; it supports the continuing professional development of performing artists. New York Live Arts serves as home base for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company; it is the company’s sole producer, providing support and the environment to originate innovative and challenging new work for the Company and New York’s creative community.
FUNDING
Support for New York Live Arts is provided by the Arnhold Foundation, Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Ed Bradley Family Foundation, The Brant Foundation, Inc., Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts, Dance/NYC, Ford Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, Marta Heflin Foundation, Alex Katz Foundation, Lambent Foundation, Alice Lawrence Foundation, Samuel M. Levy Family Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Muriel Pollia Foundation, National Performance Network, New England Foundation for the Arts, NYC COVID-19 Response & Impact Fund in the New York Community Trust, The Poss Family Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Jerome Robbins Foundation, The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, San Francisco Foundation, The Semel Charitable Foundation, Scherman Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Tides Foundation.
Public support for New York Live Arts is from Humanities New York, National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Correction, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.
Corporate support for New York Live Arts includes Con Edison, Google, Otter AI, Tito’s Handmade Vodka.
We thank our Partners for New Performance for supporting the Live Feed, Fresh Tracks and engagement programs: Alexes Hazen, Linda Hirschson, Julie Orlando, Andrea Rosen, Nina Stricker. Additional support provided by Rockefeller Brothers Fund. |
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