Choreographer Aakomon "AJ" Jones has worked with the likes of Madonna, Justin Timberlake, Jennifer Lopez and Mariah Carey.
But the metro Atlanta native's most recent project was extra special. As the choreographer tasked with teaching Chadwick Boseman to embody James Brown for the movie "Get on Up," Jones felt a sense of historical and cultural allegiance.
“I felt a responsibility, not only to James Brown himself and his legacy. I felt a responsibility to the black community,” Jones, who now lives in Los Angeles, said during a recent interview. “I’m a fan of James Brown before anything. I wanted to do it right.”
Boseman specifically saluted Jones' tutelage during a recent stop in Atlanta to promote the movie, directed by "The Help" director Tate Taylor and also starring "The Help" cast members Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis.
“I just danced,” Boseman said. “I danced all the time. We shot dance numbers throughout. I was constantly moving. I had an amazing choreographer.”
Jones worked on the project for about four months, and said he started by helping Boseman get into Brown’s psyche. Brown, who died in Atlanta on Christmas Day 2006, was born in South Carolina and grew up in Augusta, where as a youngster he turned a few bucks on the street by dancing to drum up business for his aunt’s brothel.
“James Brown moves like this for a reason,” Jones said. “I would do things with (Boseman) that were never going to be performed on stage, just to get his core stronger. How to slide, how to move in dress shoes. You would have thought we were training for NFL season. Then it was, ‘Let’s grab that mic.’ I would really get psychological with him.”
Jones, who grew up in Decatur, started out as a backup dancer. He once performed with Arrested Development when the group opened for Brown on tour, but he didn’t get much one-on-one time with the hardest working man in show business.
“I was lucky enough to see him one good time,” Jones said. “We took a picture that I never got my hands on after the fact. This was pre-social media, and that picture has been lost forever. I didn’t get to say much to him. Hopefully me getting to work on this film was me getting to say something.”
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