John Jones

Jerome Robbins’ Ballets: USA (1958-61)
Joffrey Ballet (1965-1968)
Dance Theatre of Harlem (1969-early 1970s)
Afro-American Dance Ensemble
American Dance Machine
Rod Rodgers Dance Company

John Jones is a native Philadelphian and studied with Marion Cuyjet and Sydney King at the Judimar School from 1951 to 1955. He also studied with Anthony Tudor and Margaret Crask at the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School and then School of American Ballet with Stanley Williams. He performed professionally with Katherine Dunham (mid-1950s), in Jerome Robbins’ Ballets: USA (1958-61), Joffrey Ballet (1965-1968), Dance Theatre of Harlem (1969-early 1970s), Arthur Hall’s Afro-American Dance Ensemble (early 1970s), American Dance Machine (early to mid-1970s), and Rod Rodgers Dance Company (mid 1980s). Besides his teaching at Judimar, Philadelphia School of Performing Arts, Arthur Hall’s Afro-American Dance Ensemble, Rod Rogers Dance Company, and in Japan, he has choreographed dances for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Pennsylvania Ballet, and American Dance Machine. Jones was cast alongside white dancer Wilma Curley in Jerome Robbins’ Passage for Two, a choice that, according to a New York Times article, was said to be “making a statement.”

 

 

Sources:

Leaping a Generation Gap to Revive a Robbins Ballet, The New York Times
Legacies of Twentieth-Century Dance, Google Books

Photos:

Ballet dancers John Jones and Delores Brown performing at Lincoln Center, New York, ca. 1950s, The New York Public Library
Dancer John Jones (left) with unidentified female dancer, performing on rooftop, when he was a member of choreographer Antony Tudor’s dance class at the Ballet Guild, Philadelphia, ca. 1954, The New York Public Library