Who am I?

My name is Josy Jones. I am a theatre practitioner. I am an actor, director, playwright, producer, amongst other things. I am a community builder and I am an aspiring lighting designer.

I am also the founder of the Chameleon Village Theatre Collective, which is a site-specific theatre company based right here in Akron, Ohio. Site-specific theatre is actually one of the pillars of my work, and so I will talk a little bit about it. I’ll start by trying to define site-specific theatre, and there are lots of definitions, but I’ll use my own for now. I define site-specific theatre as theatre that is created for non-traditional theatre spaces; and I always use the example of a coffee shop. If I wanted to make a performance that happens in a coffee shop instead of building a coffee shop on stage, I would actually put it in a proper coffee shop. I believe that this change is how people interact with their environment and challenges the artists who are a part of these creative processes.

What Inspired Me to Create?

So what inspired me to create? I’ve always been a creative, even though I didn’t always have the words for it. But my first conscious inspiration for becoming a creative is actually how the Chameleon Village was started. I had graduated from undergrad and I didn’t have money to buy my own theater or rent my own theater. I also kept experiencing artists who were trying to hone their talent, but they didn’t have enough years of experience. You want to get an entry-level job, but you need 3 years worth of experience to do so. Lastly, I kept experiencing all of these underutilized spaces throughout Macon, Georgia, where the Chameleon Village started. And thus the Chameleon Village was born.

Why Do I Create?

Why do I create? I think one of the biggest experiences I’ve had came when I was about 21 years old. It was right before my senior year of college and I actually lost my grandmother. And instead of grieving, I just threw myself into my studies. I could not grieve. I had to work and finish and get my degree.

One of the other artists that was a part of that senior class created a piece called “All the Pretty Princesses.” And “All the Pretty Princesses” is about all of the fairy tale princesses going to the psych ward. And I played the eldest sister of Ariel. If you know the proper stories of the princesses, they’re actually really dark. Spoiler alert, Ariel dies. But I played Ran who was her oldest sister who’s based off of a Nordic god. And there is a big monologue that’s a part of the piece, which she talks about actually watching her sister die. And it was the first time that I was actually able to grieve my grandmother’s death. And I want to be able to give that sense of being seen to others, both audiences and artists, not necessarily just grief, but in a range of human emotion. I want to challenge myself and challenge those who encounter my work.

Photos by The Green Photograph

My ArtsForward Project: The Reflection Series

So for ArtsForward, I created a project called the Reflection Series, which is a three-part project.

One of the pieces actually opened in October of this year in partnership with Summit Artspace, shoutout to them. It happened inside of a freight elevator and it was a piece that is examining the life lessons that we learn in a cycle. I feel like people learn the same life lesson over and over, and I wanted to explore that. That piece happened inside of the freight elevator at Summit Artspace. The next piece that’s a part of this is called The Dialogue. It is a conversation with a tree. That will be in the fall of next year, but it is a conversation with a tree to try to see how we can be more connected to nature and what we can learn from nature as we move closer to technology.

I’m actually a special case because I also was a Creative Investment awardee, and for the Creative Investment grant, I learned a software called ETC or EOS which is the standard software for lighting design for theatre. I’m still learning it, but learning it through this program actually helped me get a couple of gigs and start to design my own work.

Impacting the Community

So how do I want to impact the community? And I have a very “granty” way of talking about this and it comes from the vision for the Chameleon Village. The Chameleon Village believes that by creating new site-specific theater, we provide community members with a chance to see new value and possibility in their environment, we offer opportunities for artists to hone their talents, we spark economic development by connecting the arts community and business sectors to new audiences, we introduce vitality to otherwise sterile spaces, and we make theater accessible by developing creative ways to reach new and diverse audiences. That’s simple enough, it’s very cute.

But personally, how I want to impact this community, I’d like to start with a quote from one of our great contemporary artists, Tyler, The Creator, “This **** [is] regular. Regular. All this **** be regular.” Regular meaning average. Unimpressive. We settle for okay in this region when we have the talent to strive for more. We could be better at supporting artists and in turn, we artists could be taking more creative risks, honing our talent, and increasing the quality of the work we can provide because of that support. And that might sound harsh. But I want to challenge the region to step up, strive for more, to sharpen our creative senses and our tastes, to create or try something new, experience something new, try something different, try something weird. You deserve more. No more, “Oh well, this is good enough,” because it’s not. It’s regular. We deserve more; artists deserve more. And so I want to challenge people to seek more, taste the rainbow, y’all. Stop settling for regular where you live, but going elsewhere for spectacular.

Why Does Art Matter?

Why does art matter? Art, like nature, is some of the visible magic we get to see in this world. There is so much pain and hate and suffering and chaos, and art provides the relief that we need. It provides perspective and reflection. It helps us see things differently. Art has the power to bring us back to ourselves, bring us back to each other and the world around us. And I’m not just talking about theatre or painting. I’m talking about movies, books, podcasts and music. It’s all part of a big art family. It’s one of the only times in our lives when we work together with strangers towards a goal, like in a rehearsal process, or where touching is encouraged like when you are learning to dance. Artists make the magic in your life possible.

So why support ArtsForward? Why is art important?

Because if you didn’t have art, what the **** would you do?