Lela Aisha Jones

Lela Aisha Jones will participate in a week-long residency with multiple public and community-based components in Minnesota's Twin Cities. She will perform Native Portals as part of an evening curated by St. Paul's Brownbody, an original repertory whose mission is to build artistic experiences that disrupt biased narratives and prompts audiences to engage as active participants in the journey. The 3-4 shows will be on April 27-29 at the Southern Theater, Minneapolis. The program will be a mixed evening of art by Brownbody, Lela Aisha Jones, and Leslie Parker Dance Project from St. Paul, MN. All three black female-led organizations create socially-engaged, multidisciplinary performances centering African diaspora narratives. Each show will be followed by a post-show talk with the artists and audiences. This residency is a vital next step for Lela to move her work through likeminded communities and for it to be in conversation with other artists' practices and art works. It will also deepen her connections and practical approaches to social change practice, and experiences creating work centering the voices of black/African diasporic women.

Lela Aisha Jones is a native of Tallahassee, FL who resides in Philadelphia, PA. She is the founder of FlyGround, her creative home, where she cultivates her diasporic movement practice and artistry. She is also the lead centralizer/organizer for the Dancing for Justice Philadelphia initiative and co-founder (with Deneane Richburg) of The Requisite Movers.  Lela defines herself as a movement artist and a catalyst dedicated to creating transformative spaces through education, media, restorative activism, performance, artistry, and archival practices.