J'Sun Howard
J’Sun Howard is a Chicago-based dancemaker and poet. He creates intimate performances that express generous, loving, and compassionate play between Black and Brown men. He was awarded an inaugural 2020 Esteemed Artist Award from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) and is an Asian Cultural Council Fellow. He has recently received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Performance Network and the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission.
A Links Hall Co-MISSION Fellow, a Ragdale Foundation Sybil Shearer Fellow, 2017 3Arts Make A Wave Awardee, and 2014 Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist, J'Sun has presented his choreography at venues as Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Links Hall, Art Theatre Dance Box Kobe (Kobe, Japan), Ruth Page Center for the Arts, Sonotheque, Lincoln Square Theatre, Insight Arts/Center for New Possibilities, Epiphany Church, Rumble Arts, California Institute of the Arts, Oakton Community College, Candy Box Dance Festival, Defibrillator Performance Art Gallery, Patrick's Cabaret and Candy Box Dance Festival (Minneapolis, MN), Danspace Project (New York City), The Arts Club of Chicago, California Institute of the Arts, Art Institute of Chicago, Center for Performance Research (NYC), M1 Singapore Fringe Festival, Detroit Dance City Festival (Detroit, MI), Holding Common Ground: Pathway to Cultural Exchance (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam), New Dance Festival International Festival (Daejeon, South Korea)—where he won Best Dance Choreographer 2019—and World Dance Alliance Asia-Pacific’s International Young Choreographers’ Project (Kaohsiung, Taiwan).
J’Sun has performed for several choreographers including Malcolm Jason Low, Asimina Chremos, Sara Wookey, Paige Cunningham-Caldarella, and Selene Carter, but most extensively with ongoing collaborators Darrell Jones, Damon Green, and DJ Justin Mitchell in their research of (e)feminized ritual performance, which received a 2013 Juried Bessie Award for Hoo-Ha (for your eyes only).
J’Sun has been commissioned by Common Conservatory, Northwestern University, Columbia College Chicago, World Dance Alliance, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Additional awards include Illinois Arts Council Agency’s Individual Artist grants, City of Chicago DCASE Individual Artist Program grants, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation USArtists International, a 2018 Bests New Poets nominee, and Frontier Poetry and Button poetry chapbook prize finalist. J’Sun’s poems have appeared in The Matador Review, WusGood?, The Shade Journal, Calamus Journal, Bird’s Thumb, Sonic Boom, Propter Nos, and I Can’t Breathe: A Poetic Anthology of Fresh Air.
Featured Artworks
The Righteous Beauty of the Things Never Accounted For
Photo by Michelle Reid
The Righteous Beauty of the Things Never Accounted For
Photo by Michelle Reid
The Righteous Beauty of the Things Never Accounted For
Photo by Michelle Reid
The Righteous Beauty of the Things Never Accounted For
Photo by Michelle Reid
The Righteous Beauty of the Things Never Accounted For
Photo by Michelle Reid
J'Sun Howard has crowd-funded a project with 3AP
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- $5,125 raised of $5,000 goal
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For over a year and in different iterations, I have been collaborating with dance artists Solomon Bowser, Dedrick "D. Banks" Gray, Damon Green, and Orlando DeLeon to develop aMoratorium, a response and tribute to visual artist Charles Wilbert White. …
Read more about aMoratorium -
- $6,010 raised of $5,000 goal
- 0 Days 0:00:00 LEFT
I am developing a new experimental dance piece called The Righteous Beauty of the Things Never Accounted For. This work explores Black Fugitivity, a concept that explores the ongoing and historical resistance to systems of oppression that Black people …
Read more about The Righteous Beauty of the Things Never Accounted For