Visiting Hours: Righteous Beauty by J'Sun Howard

Join NCCAkron for an intimate look into the creative process for The Righteous Beauty of the Things Never Accounted For – a work about transformative experiences by J’Sun Howard (Chicago, IL). Visiting hours are a fluid, 3-hour period where the artist has opened up their rehearsal space to the public. Visitors are welcome to come and go throughout for as short or as long a time as they would like.

During his residency, J’Sun is developing a new section for Righteous Beauty inspired by a short story from Yukiko Motoya’s collection, The Lonesome Builder. The book’s theme focuses on individuals who find liberation from various, often dire, circumstances. J’Sun hopes Motoya’s work sheds more light on his connection to Japan and provides critical frameworks for Black Fugitivity, which underscores Righteous Beauty. It also speaks to his larger creative ethos of practicing freedom.

J’Sun is a part of NCCAkron’s 21st Century Dance Practices, a capsule series representative of genres, geographies, cultural and/or social contexts outside the traditional binary of modern and ballet in a conservatory setting, and a Creative Residency artist. This event is part of the Ideas in Motion initiative from NCCAkron and The University of Akron made possible by The University of Akron Foundation’s Mary Schiller Myers Lecture Series in the Arts and additional support by Peg’s Foundation.

About the Work

The Righteous Beauty of the Things Never Accounted For explores Black Fugitivity, the ongoing and historical resistance to systems of oppression that Black people face and the ways in which they have sought to escape or evade those systems in order to preserve their autonomy, dignity, and freedom. In Righteous Beauty, J’Sun Howard uses movement as an anchor and source for practicing freedom, allowing the viewer to discover unexpected beauty that’s typically hard to experience in a carceral state. It is an embodied look into existing when the cosmos does not want one to exist.

The Righteous Beauty of the Things Never Accounted For is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by Links Hall (Chicago, IL) and NPN. More information: www.npnweb.org.

About the Artist

J’Sun Howard is a Chicago-based dancemaker and the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the National Endowment for the Arts, National Performance Network Creation Fund and Development Fund Awards, a 3Arts Award, and the inaugural City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events’ Esteemed Artist Award. Additionally, he is recognized as an Asian Cultural Council Fellow.

His works have been showcased at prominent venues such as Links Hall, Ruth Page Center for the Arts, Steppenwolf Theater Company, Defibrillator Performance Gallery, Patrick’s Cabaret (Minneapolis, MN), Candy Box Festival (Minneapolis, MN), Danspace Project (NYC), Center for Performance Research (NYC), Detroit Dance City Festival (Detroit, MI), New Dance Festival (Daejeon, South Korea), where he won Best Dance Choreographer, and the World Dance Alliance’s International Young Choreographers’ Project (Kaohsiung, Taiwan).

He has received commissions from Northwestern University, Columbia College Chicago, World Dance Alliance, and The Art Institute of Chicago. He holds an MFA in Dance and a graduate certificate in World Performance Studies from the University of Michigan.

Photo credit: Michelle Reid