Jackson Neal

Jackson “Jax” Neal (12th Cohort) is a poet, dancer and choreographer from Houston, Texas currently based in Madison, Wisconsin. Neal uses movement and language as technologies of intimacy which he engages in various mediums including but not limited to: poetry, essay, dance, physical theater, performance art, and endurance tests. He believes that literature and embodied movement demand a profound honesty and commitment which move the artist and the audience toward their own goodness. Neal is a former National Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador to the Southwestern United States, selected by the Library of Congress and Urban Word NYC. His debut chapbook, “Dear Azula, I Have a Crush on Danny Phantom” co-authored with Azura Tyabji, was published by Button Poetry in 2021. Neal has trained in contemporary dance and physical theater techniques across the United States and Germany. His dance and poetry have been performed on stages such as the Dock 11 Theater, Tanzfabrik UferStudios, The Kennedy Center for the Arts, the National YoungArts Foundation, the Library of Congress, and the Overture Center for the Arts. Neal is a First Wave Scholar at the University of Wisconsin- Madison, the only full tuition scholarship for Hip Hop and Spoken Word Artists in the world. Neal graduates with a dual B.S. in Dance and English in Spring 2023.