Photo by Cathryn Farnsworth

Benjamin Jones is a Latinx dance artist from Albuquerque, New Mexico, completing his BFA at USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. Beginning ballet at four, he appreciated its discipline, musicality and precision while exploring contemporary dance, jazz, hip-hop, acrobatics and tumbling. Gaga has shaped his understanding of the body, allowing him to explore intersections between styles and their physicalities. He is fascinated by how technical refinement creates structure for freedom, allowing sensation, instinct and curiosity to extend beyond any singular form.

His performance experience includes Shahar Binyamini’s Bolero X with Ballet BC, Martha Graham’s Acts of Light and excerpts from Sharon Eyal’s Love Chapter II. He has worked with choreographers including Aszure Barton, Chloe J. Crenshaw, Marco Goecke, Roderick George, Andrea Miller, Imre van Opstal, Crystal Pite, Omani Ormskirk, Peter Chu, Jiří Kylián, J. J. Wang and Spenser Theberge. His artistic development includes Ballet BC 44 Intensive, Imre van Opstal Creative Lab, Nederlands Dans Theater Summer Intensive, Orsolina28’s repertory program with Crystal Pite and Marco Goecke, Springboard Danse, The School at Jacob’s Pillow Contemporary Program and Zeitgeist Dance Theatre’s trainee program. This season, he will perform a new creation by Bret Easterling.

Benjamin approaches repertory as a living practice rather than a fixed form. He is interested in honoring a work’s specificity while allowing it to remain breathing and responsive within the body. His practice taps into the internal world through surrender and explores sensation as its physical expression. This opens new physical possibilities, while structure becomes a means to truly let go.