Projects

I create and produce performances under the moniker, LVJ Performance Co., whose mission is to create performances that explore the theme of healing, of Self and Community. I have two pathways for work; intergenerational large-scale community projects (sometimes with my family band Yackez) and improvisational performances for dancers using my interdisciplinary practice, the Star Pû Method.

Yackez is my family band and multimedia project created with my husband Jon Velez-Jackson, who is a writer and musician. Our large-scale productions incorporate dance, visual and costume design, and choreography that I create in collaboration with LVJ Performance Co. dancers. Yackez prides ourselves on our eclectic sound and diverse audience. 

Dr. Absurd Joy is my ASMR video persona who specializes in different healing and relaxing sound experiments. As a multimedia project of community care, Dr. Absurd Joy's YouTube videos include one-on-one somatic sound healing sessions and one-take performances of ASMR---which stands for "autonomous sensory meridian response." ASMR describes the tingly feelings around the crown of the head or spine that accompany soft sounds and certain visual stimulation and also describes a new genre of audio/visual media (usually recorded on a high quality 3-dimensional microphone), used to illicit that response of euphoric relaxation. Dr. Absurd Joy's ASMR and sound healing offerings both function as an aid in meditation and inducing/maintaining sleep.

The Star Pû Method is a dance-theater technique and a corresponding theater work I created in 2012, formerly known as the Star Crap Method. Participants improvise together in song, text, movement, and digital sound, revealing the layers of the moment of performance; namely the dancers’ experience, emotions, hxstory, desires and the shared experience with the audience. Allowing for failure and anti-climax, we examine if the performance encounter is a space that enables healing.

As a form of community building and in service to myself and the greater New York dance and performance community; I facilitate a barter/mentorship/internship model in Middletown/Newburgh/Beacon area. In return for video documentation, social media and administrative work for LVJ Performance Co. detailed below; I offer sessions in artist mentorship, improvisation, body mechanics and energy work to dancers and artists. As an experimental artist, I leave space for us to dream up new mutually beneficial permutations together. When project budgets permit, barter assistants will be the first considered for paid administrative and production roles starting at $25 an hour.