jeremy de’jon guyton
An alchemist, dreamer, instigator, and new world conjurer moonlighting as a director, choreographer, multidisciplinary maker, scholar, and teaching artist. A first-generation Angeleno, I remember exploring the movement vocabularies of krump and jerk on elementary playgrounds. Upon graduation from high school, I studied theatre at Georgetown University. In 2012, I moved to New Orleans and returned to second-line footwork and bounce while working at the intersection of arts and advocacy as Youth Programs Director at Dancing Grounds. In May 2022, I received an MFA in Choreography and Performance at Florida State University. Credits include: Solange Knowles, Aluna, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes, Claws (TNT), Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Kesha McKey, Leyla McCallah and Kiyoko McCrae, Kristin Sudeikis, Maya Taylor, Chris Emile, KM Dance Project, Junebug Productions, B.U.K.U. Dance Krewe, and Goat in the Road Productions.
I am an alchemist. I employ a multitude of talents with keen awareness and discernment to realize creative possibilities and devise innovative solutions.
My creative process is inherently unapologetic shadow work– a movement meditation, unearthing the bowels of my soul to unlearn and rehumanize my spiritual and physical form. I draft blueprints of a world that molds around this form, offering this matter a space to occupy. This process is both individual and collective work and its ripples carry the capacity to enact positive social change. I have the unique charge of conjuring ephemeral realms through which audiences reflect on their reality. I hold immense power – it is through my artistry that I heal myself, others, and the spaces we dare inhabit.
Through my artistry, I engage in legacy work. I was adopted by a single father in 1990 who would transition to the ancestral realm in 1992 due to complications from AIDS. I chase his voice in the rehearsal room; he improvises with me and together we find liberation as Black, bisexual men. When we rehearse together, we spend time constructing memory space – playing in the in between for hours, slipping deeper into the edges of our consciousness. I am reminded, through my father’s journey, of the consequences and harsh realities of this world and am held accountable to his legacy to pursue liberatory spaces for my communities.
In doing this work, I often create from personal lived experience, employing character-driven narratives, to evoke familiarity and connection as I invite audiences in as citizens of a collective fantasy.
My art is a call to action. It demands accountability for the ways in which I move through space. It nudges my imagination to think within and around existing structures to create safe, fantastical spaces for every spirit in our community. This movement interrogates the body and seeks the upheaval of power and supremacist thought patterns. My art assumes discomfort as a necessary condition for growth and evolution.
My process makes messes.
My process is a play date with my inner child god.
They speak. I listen. We create. We evolve.
We return. We return. We return.
Photo Credits: Trenity J. Thomas (@504degrees)