The first part Product of Divorce is about the falsity of true companionship and pre-cancer trauma. How a negative home environment for a child due to an abusive parental relationship can create trauma and stress, potentially leading to illness. Birthed from two that weren’t meant to be. 

There’s an elephant in the room. Observing boy to man. Inspired by the children’s book Babar, often read by Jacob Jonas’ grandmother as a bedtime story after homemade chocolate chip cookies. The story of the children’s book oddly mirrors his upbringing. Is monogamy possible? Pardon the obvious question. All the child wanted was a safe environment. 

Choreography - Jacob Jonas

Composed/Accompanied - Antonio Sánchez

Additional composition and featuring Justin Boreta, Okaidja Afroso, Larry Jonas

Dates

• Friday, March 20 at 7:30pm
• Sunday, March 22 at 2:00pm

The second work Nature Sounds While the IV Drips is about war. It reflects the endurance of the battle of illness- long hospital stays, silence, and the emotional weight of chemotherapy. There are eight movements in this work, inspired by eight rounds of chemotherapy while battling stage four cancer.

Choreography - Jacob Jonas

Composed by - Justin Boreta, Diplo, Imogen Heap and Okaidja Afroso. And Accompanied by Okaidja Afroso

Dates

• Friday, March 20 at 7:30pm
• Sunday, March 22 at 2:00pm

Restart considers the psychological aftermath of illness—making sense of life and death, light and darkness, and everything in between. And all the guests along the way. Restart is about soil: found often for construction, during death to bury one’s flesh into the earth, or in a garden to bring new seeds to life. This questions if one can begin again and re-enter into their deepest humanity. If the question of what happened could be answered and the wounds it left could be healed.

Choreography - Jacob Jonas

Dates

• Thursday, March 19 at 7:30pm
• Sunday, March 22 at 6:00pm

We are all a mirror, to ourselves, to each other, to nature. Our love and joy, pain and suffering, and pursuit to continue is all interconnected. My desire is to expose my deepest vulnerabilities of trauma and hope to act as a reflection and build a conversation with my audience. This work particularly is the result of being in a forced stillness.

You lay in bed. Your body sinks. They lift the bars on either side. The air pushes through.  Continuous knocking. A symphony of normality plays through the window. The loud beeps from the IV pole. A continuous drip. A drip down the side of the face. I wish I was running along the water. Headphones in while the sounds of waves crash. Dance was always for therapy. For release. A release from the predators all around. A flight or fight response. The nervous system calms.

Trying to make sense of it all. Trying to become something or someone. I am sorry for my darkness, but if willing to understand my pain and story, I invite you to experience it too. Maybe we are all dead? Maybe we are all alive, maybe we are all seeking answers we can never overcome. This work is about the seeking of an answer, and the unfortunate people and past versions of myself I’ve left behind in looking for the truth. Aren’t we all just a little mad?

Often people describe my work as a meditation. It is designed to be a residency of thought. Of time extended past our comfort zone to provide opportunity to allow what want to, to arise. The way it has for me in my healing. As we heal together, we can find peace. I appreciate your patience and support in going on this journey to witness the struggle and friction of ascending from darkness into light. From falling, and grounding into the floor before rising again. From surrendering fully to the sun and moon, the river and ocean to allow the messages of nature to guide us. My ego persists to tell these stories. My relationship to fungi has exposed new truths. These truths dance with me and the artists on stage. Thank you for arriving. For being here. From bringing judgement and perspective, for support and love. For criticism and presence. You are the light for us as artists. Thank you for seeing us. The arts are our only language that makes sense today, and we are grateful to share our imagination with you.

Jacob Jonas, Santa Monica 2026