Cass Tech’s Javon Jones is not your typical dancer. He grew up in an athletic family, playing lacrosse, basketball and soccer for hours daily. His level of focus and discipline to routine led him to dance after hanging out with cousins making routines in the basement.
“Looking back at the videos, I guess I sort of outshined my cousins,” he said.
He outshined them all the way to Juilliard.
Jones, a dance workshop senior, is was one of 12 men accepted to the world renowned performing arts university in New York – and the only one to receive a full ride scholarship for ballet.
Vocal music and the piano was his first love. But in eighth grade, Jones attended a dance intensive at Oakland University with college students. Being the youngest and least experienced participant of the intensive, he utilized this intensive as an opportunity to test his limits and enhance his dancing skills with guidance from dancers more experienced than he was.
Jones then auditioned for the Broadway musical The Lion King and earned a role. As a sophomore and junior he auditioned for the renowned Alvin Ailey. However, Jones’ mother wanted him to complete high school before going to work in New York, which turned into a wise decision.
In September 2015, Jones auditioned for the “Young Arts Foundation,” a program that grants students with the opportunities needed to excel in the world of the performing arts. In his research, Jones discovered that many of the world-renowned dancers that he looks up to began their foundation in this program. This inspired him to apply. He submitted a video along with 12,000 other applicants, which was narrowed down to 12 finalists.
Jones’ submission was the result of a project assigned by Advanced Placement English teacher Vickie Green, who instructed her seniors to do detailed analysis of Toni Morrison’s Nobel Prize winning novel “Beloved,” which uncovers some harsh truths about slavery.
Jones choreographed an interpretive dance that he titled “Dearly Beloved” and performed the piece in the video, which earned him the inaugural $10,000 Max Mara Young Visionary Award in February.
“I knew I was inspired by what the character “Beloved” was going through, and I really made the dance based on chapter 22, which was her monologue and it was just talking about her in this really dark place, and it could have been the bile of the slave ship or purgatory, and I really tried to just display that for the audience; the grief and strife and thriving and being trapped,” said Jones.
Since winning, Mara paired Jones with a publicist that has place him in professional dancing arenas and he was even able to meet the acclaimed male Russian ballet dancer, Mikhail Baryshnikov in New York City. He also has traveled to San Francisco, where he attended daylong workshops.
Much of Jones’ inspiration has also come from Cass Tech’s Dance Workshop Instructor Anthony Smith, who has accelerated Jones’ dance career in unimaginable ways.
"We have always produced really good dancers here,” said Smith. “Many have gone on and are currently dancing in professional companies, Alvin Ailey and on Broadway.”
Smith has worked really hard to instill in all of his dancers not only the key elements of dance but values that will help them go further in life. He does not let his students perform if they have anything less than a 3.0 grade-point average.
“I want to teach them that they have to be successful in all areas of their lives and they have to do those things that make them successful,” said Smith. “A dancer is an athlete as well as an artist.”
Jones is the first student from the Detroit Public Schools system to get accepted to Juilliard School in eight years. The school of dance only accepts 24 freshman yearly, 12 males and 12 females.
“Mr. Smith has really opened up my mind to a lot of things and helped me find my artistic voice and helped me find myself as an artist,” said Jones.
Mackenzie Galloway contributed to this report.
