Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
"[Jen/ed] is simply riveting: confident, poised, charismatic, emotional, funny, sarcastic, sincere. She reminds everyone in the room that spoken word is a performance art,... of how powerful poetry can be when it’s done right. I would eagerly pay to see this woman perform again, and I hope I get that opportunity soon." - Jim Testa, Jersey Beat Magazine
"exactly what we’re all thinking but are hesitant to say" - The Examiner
"an artist known for flexing her free-speech muscles on everything from domestic policies to gender politics" - Artvoice
Discography
'exposed' released in June 2005
compilations:
featured on 2006 'Indy Music for Life'
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
JEN/ed an alternative to gen(eral) ed(ucation)
JEN/ed is a New York-based: renegade poet, active-ist yogini, performer, educator, choreographer, published writer and recording artist. The focus of her work is challenging; people, institutions, perceptions.
JEN/ed (Jennifer Edwards) has been creating socio-political work, professionally, for the past six years. Working collaboratively in the capacity of writer /choreographer/ director/ performer, she has co-created: The Perspectives Project (1999, with Choreographers Ink), Lovers and Other Strangers (2000, with Choreographers Ink), Hurry Up and Relax (2001, with Jeanne Schickler and Alicia Mathewson). Jen has traveled across the United States and Canada as a spoken word artist. She is currently back in the studio finishing her first one-woman-show entitled, ‘Bottom Line.’
Jen recently released her first CD: ‘exposed’, a recording of political, active-ist spoken word to ‘rile and rally’ and Sanskrit chanting for peace and healing.
The pseudonym ‘JEN/ed’:
Inherited in college, due to the large number of ‘Jennifers’ in the ‘gen. X’ generation, the name JEN/ed has come to embrace the following:
1) Examined from both the perspective of student and soon after, mother, Jen realized the down falls of our currently accepted ‘gen(eral) ed(ucation)’ system. She now speaks of the importance of SELF-education.
2.) Jen openly acknowledges the existence within every being, of both feminine and masculine energies. This is just one instance of the many dualities to which we prescribe and are therefore divided in our thinking and in our lives.
New York City, visual artist/ poet, Jenn DeWald and their son, Anthony are her ‘home’. After thirteen years of motherhood, Jen is finally ‘growing into’ this part of her identity, moving away from the connotations of ‘mom’ from her childhood and reclaiming the importance of this experience. She proudly performs on the ‘mom’ stages of Mamapalooza.
Jen teaches and performs at colleges/ universities, festivals/ conferences, and community/ pride events and benefits through out the US and Canada. She offers yoga and meditation gatherings and retreats throughout NYC and around the country. And she has performed in New York, at venues including: The Knitting Factory, The Cutting Room, Arlene’s Grocery, Dixon Place, Joyce SoHo, The Living Room, Bowery Poet’s Club, and the Nuyorican Poet’s Café.
CV:
Performance Poetry: selected highlights
-Indy Music for Life NYC
-Mamapalooza NYC (Arlene’s Grocery, 72nd St. Pier, the Cutting Room)
-F-Word release party (Philly, PA)
-Girl Fest Hawaii (Honolulu)
-US and Canada tour (winter 2004 with Athena Reich)
-The Knitting Factory (NYC)
-NYC book signing party for ‘Weapons of Mass Deception’ by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton
-the Nuyorican
-Barnard College (NY pride)
-New York University (pride)
-Bowery Poets Club (NYC)
-Sister Spit Northampton (slam champion)
-Club One (Montreal)
-Vassar College
-The Living Room (NYC)
-Femina Potens (San Francisco)
Yoga and Meditation
-workshop series in NYC Center for Remembering and Sharing (’05)
-National Conference of Organized Resistance (2004, ’05)
-monthly meditations for activists, Bluestockings bookstore NYC (ongoing)
-private instructor (ongoing)
- Gilda’s Club, NY (2004)
-Meditating for Peace (and Justice): meditation workshops to promote peace to benefit United for Peace and Justice (2004)
-Goddess Fest (’03)
-500 hr. certification in yoga/meditation through apprenticeship with Kirin Mishra, Saraswati River Yoga (2002-03)
-Cancer Care, New York, NY
Dance/ Theater
-‘Bottom Line’ one-woman show, written and performed by JEN/ed –work in progress (2005)
-Adjunct professor of dance technique and choreography (1999-2005) County College of Morris
-Dance Chairperson County College of Morris; acting for department chair while she was on sabbatical (fall ‘o4)
-selected performances of original work (NYC): WOW NYC, Joyce SoHo, Dixon Place, WAX (2001-02)
-produced ‘Hurry Up and Relax’ evening-length piece, Cunningham Dance Foundation (2001)
-Artist in Residence: Havregal College, Toronto OT, Gill St. Bernard’s Academy (2001-02)
-Co-founder of Choreographers Ink, produced two full-evening-length performances: ‘The Perspectives Project’ and ‘Lovers and Other Strangers’ (1999-2000)
-MFA, BFA, New York University, Tisch School of the Arts (1998, 1999)
-selected performances of original work: PS 121, University Settlement, Cornell University (1994-95)
Selected Community Outreach
-V-day ’05 (performance of Vagina Monologues and Warrior benefit show)
-Queerstock Boston: benefiting Boston Glass queer youth action organization (performance)
-OUTRAGED: A pre-republican national convention PROTEST benefit party (organizer, performance)
-Poets Speaking Out for the Park, Not in our Name’s rally for Central Park Permit, August 20th 2004 (performance)
-NYC V-d
Links
