Marion Cuyjet and John Jones
From 1951 to 1955, John Jones studied at the Judimar School. Due to the connections forged during his training, Jones danced for fellow Judimar alumnus Arthur Hall in his company the Arthur Hall Afro-American Dance Ensemble in the early 1970s. Jones also returned to Philadelphia to teach at the Judimar School.
More about John Jones
In addition to his training with Cuyjet, Philadelphia-native Jones studied under Anthony Tudor, Margaret Craske of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School, and Stanley Williams at the School of American Ballet. Jones then performed with numerous companies: the Katherine Dunham Company, Jerome Robbins’ Ballets: USA, the Joffrey Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Afro-American Dance Ensemble, American Dance Machine, and Rod Rodgers Dance Company. He choreographed for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Dance Machine, and Pennsylvania Ballet and taught for Afro-American Dance Ensemble, Judimar, Philadelphia School of Performing Arts, and Rod Rodgers Dance Company. 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
See also:
Written by Mad Crawford
