A commitment to the next generation

Now in its second year, the annual Liz Cherry Jones Memorial Commission (LCJMC) was created in 2021 by Matthew Jones in memory of his late sister, Liz Cherry Jones (April 28, 1955 – August 1, 2017), a lifelong artist and educator. 

This partnership with Howard University’s Department of Theatre Arts commissions recent alumni and undergraduate artists at Howard to create new performance works for the Company. The Commission  supports performing artists of all kinds, including choreographers, composers, dramatic artists, filmmakers, and interdisciplinary artists. The goal of the Commission is to foster and support the awardee’s entrance into their professional arts career and to carry on Ms. Jones' legacy as a passionate advocate for arts education.

Liz Cherry Jones was a longtime teacher for the Albemarle County School District (VA), a textile artist, a local African American community historian, and an Angora goat farmer who also played piano and loved to sing. It was the synthesis of these talents, careers, and interests that led Mr. Jones to create the Liz Cherry Jones Memorial Commission with Company | E and Howard University in his sister’s memory.

“Liz was an educator. She saw first-hand and believed completely in the power of the finest multidisciplinary schooling. She was a passionate advocate for the importance of teaching artistic expression in all its forms to people of all ages – especially children – as an essential element of building critical cognitive and social skills such as problem solving, cooperation, self-worth, and empathy,” notes Mr. Jones. 

“Her two Masters’ Degrees attest to her belief in higher education. She was also an artist herself, who recognized the challenges of making a life and career in these fields of passion and purpose,” Mr. Jones adds. “And so, put together, it is an obvious choice in honoring her name and life to offer a unique opportunity to the Howard University student and recent alumni community. Providing a funded pipeline to getting work set on the finest contemporary dance troupe in DC – one I have a long relationship with – means that the art will have a rich and deep life, hopefully traveling the world in the Company | E repertoire.” 

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Created by MATT JONES

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The Commission’s founder and lead underwriter, Matthew Jones, is a member of the Aerospace Industry (30+ years) as well as a professional musician. He has been making music for over four decades and has created original musical compositions for Company | E and its predecessor companies since 1989. He is a founding and current member of the Board of Directors for Company | E. 

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Curated by Company | E and Dr. Ofosuwa Abiola

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The Commission is curated by Mr. Jones, Company | E Co-Artistic Directors Paul Gordon Emerson and Kathryn Sydell Pilkington, and the  Associate Dean of Research and Creative Endeavors in Howard University’s Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts, Dr. Ofosuwa Abiola. 

“This is exactly the type of opportunity we seek for our students: real-world paths from University to the professional world. The fact that this is open to both our undergraduates and recent alumni means we can select from the most extraordinary young talent, serving not just to educate and empower them on the university campus, but also provide them with a first step out into the careers they have spent their lives training for,” Dr. Abiola says. “To have the Commission made in honor of a woman who was both an academic and an artist feels exactly right.”

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Meet 2022 LCJMC Awardee Tori Yevette Carter

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Company | E and Howard University are proud to introduce Tori Yevette Carter as the 2022 LCJMC awardee.

Ms. Carter began her dance training in Dallas, TX at Dallas Black Dance Academy and Ozsoy's School of Ballet. She was a member of the Allegro Performing Ensemble during the 2018-19 season, under the direction of Katricia Eaglin at Dallas Black Dance Academy, and graduated first in her class as the Valedictorian of Grand Prairie Fine Arts Academy in 2019.

She is in her third year of pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Arts with a minor in Afro American Studies at Howard University in Washington, DC. Since starting her degree in Fall 2019, she has performed with the dance department in two student choreography concerts (2019 & 2020), at The International Association of Blacks In Dance Conference (2020), and worked with choreographers Kayah Franklin, Rachel Harris, and Tommie Waheed-Evans. 

She is looking forward to expanding and refining her artistic and academic skill sets throughout her matriculation at Howard University and intends to pursue a professional career as a performing artist and choreographer. 

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A Chat with Tori Carter 

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Q: Tell us a bit about what its like to be awarded this commission 

"I feel extremely blessed to have been chosen to be a Liz Cherry Jones Memorial Commission awardee. Not only because it is an outstanding opportunity, but because I am now part of her artistic legacy. 

I am beyond excited to delve into creating a work that is deserving of this honor and a reflection of who I am as an artist at this point in my academic and artistic journey. I feel personally connected to Ms. Liz Cherry Jones because I value scholarship equally to artistry and have always wanted to be able to pursue both with the same attention and vigor. 

She embodied a perfect example of being able to blend all her interests as a scholar-artist and share her multifaceted mind with others, and I can only hope that in my career I’ll be able to follow her footsteps and do the same."

Q: What you plan to create.? 

I plan to create a work that honors the women in my life and how all their various characteristics work together to build, support, and sustain the world around them. 

They are all forces of nature that have shaped who I am and the world around me and I hope to represent them well through movement and score. I am excited to collaborate with the composer Clifton and see how we’ll come together to form the original music for the work. Music composition is not something I’d ever believed I’d have the opportunity to do at this point in my life, so I’m looking forward to learning from Clifton and this process of creation."

Ms. Carter's work is set to premiere in May '22 in Richmond, Virginia and in June in DC. 

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 2021 Inaugural Year Commission Awardees:   RAYVEN LEAK with CLIFTON BROCKINGTON

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The Commission launched in June 2021 with the first awardee, Rayven Leak, creating a new work for Company | E’s June 2021 NEXT:WARMER concert, focusing on climate change and ecology. Ms. Leak, a 2020 Howard University graduate, was selected by Dr. Abiola and Mr. Jones for her fresh, rich choreographic talent. “She’s a perfect beginning to this program,” Dr. Abiola notes. 

“It’s an honor to be named as the choreographer for the inaugural Liz Cherry Jones Memorial Commission. Creating is a special opportunity always, especially for a company like Company | E in DC. But to know that my work is in honor of Matt’s sister, an artist and educator in her own right, is transformative. My hope is that what is made will embody her and her spirit. I’m very proud to be a part of this, and to be the Commission’s voice on stage.” 

Ms. Leak is joined in creating for the LCJMC by Clifton Brockington, who is Composer-in-Residence for Company | E and a graduate of Howard University himself. Mr. Brockington has been making music with Mr. Jones and Company | E since 2000. “It’s amazing to be working with a new voice in the dance world in honor of Matt’s sister. Matt and I have worked together now for nearly a quarter of a century, and this is such an elegant way to keep Liz’s memory alive,” notes Mr. Brockington. 

Ms. Leak is joined in creating for the LCJMC by Clifton Brockington, who is Composer-in-Residence for Company | E and a graduate of Howard University himself. Mr. Brockington has been making music with Mr. Jones and Company | E since 2000. “It’s amazing to be working with a new voice in the dance world in honor of Matt’s sister. Matt and I have worked together now for nearly a quarter of a century, and this is such an elegant way to keep Liz’s memory alive,” notes Mr. Brockington.  

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WATCH PASSENGER IN PERFORMANCE

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INITIAL THREE-YEAR COMMISSION 

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The Liz Cherry Jones Memorial Commission is funded initially for three years by Mr. Jones, with the goal of creating a larger sustaining program for more than one artist per year and stretching indefinitely into the future. In its inaugural year, the Commission award for Ms. Leak is $2,500.00 and $2,000.00 for Mr. Brockington. “My sister was a person whose eye was always rooted firmly both in the future and in the past,” concluded Mr. Jones. “She understood clearly that we must know where we have been if we are to have a chance to create a path for where we seek to go. I know she would be proud to have her name associated with one of the nation’s great institutions of higher learning and Historically Black Universities.” 

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LIZ CHERRY JONES

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Elizabeth “Liz” Cherry Jones (April 28, 1955 - August 1, 2017) was a longtime art teacher for Albermarle County elementary schools, textile artist, local historian and Angora goat farmer. She also played piano and loved to sing and dance. 

She was a passionate advocate for the importance of teaching artistic expression in all its forms to people of all ages - especially children - as an essential element of building critical cognitive and social skills such as problem solving, cooperation, self-worth, and empathy. 

Liz taught art for the Albermarle County School District beginning in 2002, working at Broadus Wood and Scottsville Elementary Schools. “Liz was an incredible member of our division's instructional team for nearly two decades,” said Sharon Wilcox, Principal of the Scottsville School. 

“Her enthusiasm and pure joy for the creative energies and imaginative work of children met the highest calling of our profession.” Although Liz herself was born and raised in Philadelphia, PA, where her father was a public school teacher and her mother, a nurse, she spent many summers on her family’s property before relocating there in the 1980s. 

Liz felt a deep affinity for the region and her African American family’s 150-year-old farm in Blenheim, VA, painstakingly tracing her family’s long history there -- which on her father’s side, extended back through the Souther and Lewis families to the post-Civil War period. 

She collected documents, photos and oral histories of her ancestors and their neighbors with the intention of telling their stories. Some of her artwork explored that history, using silk screening and relief printing on paper and fabric to recall colonial Americana, a time when wool was a work of art and technique triumphed over speed. She also hand-spun and dyed yarn from her own Angora goats. 

In her early years in the Charlottesville, VA region, she also demonstrated spinning and weaving at Thomas Jefferson’s historic home, Monticello. Liz earned a long list of academic degrees, prestigious fellowships and awards, including a Bachelors’ and two Masters’ degrees, multiple mural projects for the City of Philadelphia, and serving on the Virginia Commission for the Arts, with Charlottesville’s McGuffey Art Center and at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

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