XIX INTERNATIONAL AIDS Conference presents Cornelius Jones Jr.

Making his return to the nation’s capital

Broadway’s Cornelius Jones Jr.

in his new solo-show/poetic memoir

SHADOWS & LIGHTS 

“Cornelius Jones’s life is a profile in courage.”

-Washington City Paper

“...highly reflective, purposeful, and raw oral history..”

-Ramon Johnson, gaylife.about.com

“...the creation of a new form of myth among gay black men, a kind

of “Everyman” of the modern age and this community."

-Philip Fletcher, dctheatrescene.com

"impressive is Jones’ ability to transform that self-awareness into a frank,

funny, and revealing one-man show."

-Aaron Weiner, WashingtonCityPaper.com

"His minimalist writing, recalling in some ways e.e. cummings, carves out finely designed pictographs for the mind to explore."

--Pandora Scooter, CEO Fushicho Entertainment & Spoken Word Artist

“Jones' prose pops and percolates, possessing an immediacy and energy so electric… you will be on the edge of your seat, captured by the rapture of Jones' "a-to-the-men" testimonies on love and lust, hurt and healing, sadness and celebration."

- James Earl Hardy, author of the bestselling B-Boy Blues series

“Cornelius is simply masterful with the poetic word in Shadows and Lights; he writes with a fire in his soul that burns in the rhythm of his prose.  He teaches us not only how to live, but how to love - especially ourselves!”

- Lee Hayes, author of The Bad Seed, Passion Marks, and the forthcoming The First Male

What: Shadows & Lights

Who: Cornelius Jones Jr./SHADOWS & LIGHTS presented by

XIX International AIDS Conference

Where: GLOBAL VILLAGE MAINSTAGE – Washington Convention Center

801 Mount Vernon Place NW, Washington, DC 20001

When: Tuesday July 24 @ 7:00PM

FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Info: www.aids2012.org - www.corneliusjonesjr.com

Press Contact: info@corneliusjonesjr.com, 917-334-7526

About Shadows & Lights

Broadway Actor Cornelius Jones Jr. brings together an intimate program of spoken word, movement, and song. Crowd favorites such as: Pump, Plié, Jump, Vulnerability, House Music and Still Swimming are performed to illustrate socially charged topics rooted in love, hope, and solidarity. In this original solo-performance Cornelius courageously shares how it is to live and survive with HIV; as a gay man and as a performing artist. Paying homage to leaders who have helped shaped him; and all the young men and women with dreams, who have grown up gay, who have become positive, and who have not had the chance to express their experiences, the performance aims to be beacon of hope in which we accept our circumstances and move on to become better for ourselves and for our community.

2010 Lorraine Hansberry Nia Award Recipient

2009 Capital Fringe Festival “Best of Fest” awarded by DCTheaterscene.com

2008 Midtown International Theater Festival Nominee:

    Outstanding Performance in a Solo-Show

Cornelius Jones Jr. 

Actor-Author-Playwright-Performance Artist-Educator

Featured in Broadway’s The Lion King &

in the LOGO and Gilead sponsored PSA:

“I AM LIVING MY TRUTH”,

which aired on MTV's LOGO Network.

Artist Information:

www.corneliusjonesjr.com

About the XIX International AIDS Conference

AIDS 2012 will bring together leading scientists, public health experts, policy makers and the HIV-affected community to translate recent momentous scientific advances into action that will address means to end the epidemic within the current context of significant global economic challenges.

The conference will have a positive impact on the HIV and AIDS response globally, and in the United States and Washington, D.C. in particular. The theme, Turning the Tide Together, captures the uniqueness of the moment, with the AIDS epidemic reaching a defining point. By acting decisively on recent scientific advances in HIV treatment and biomedical prevention, the momentum for a cure and vaccine, and the continuing evidence of the ability to scale up key interventions in the most-needed settings, we now have the potential to change the course of HIV and AIDS.  Turning the Tide Together captures the current sense of hope and the renewed optimism that a change of course in the HIV epidemic is possible. it also serves as an urgent call to action. It acknowledges that seizing this potential and actually turning the tide on HIV will require commitment and action on many levels: that each and every stakeholder in the AIDS response must play their roles.