Founder & Artistic Director

Jason Herbert is a choreographer, performer, and entrepreneur whose life’s work exists at the intersection of artistry, culture, and community. He is the founder and CEO of JR Media Group, a New York–based entertainment and consulting company launched in 2020, where he has built a reputation for merging creativity with strategy and offering artists, organizations, and brands a unique edge in media technology, storytelling, and consulting. With more than two decades of experience as a professional dancer, singer, and actor—and over a decade in music entertainment—Herbert has cultivated a career that is as diverse as it is purposeful. His path is not defined solely by the stages he has graced or the companies he has built, but by a continuous devotion to using his gifts to preserve heritage, honor community, and create opportunities for others.

Herbert’s artistic journey began with formal training at the Harlem School of the Arts and the Martha Graham School, followed by scholarships to The Alvin Ailey School and The Boston Conservatory. His career blossomed with performances in companies such as Philadanco!, Forces of Nature Dance Theatre, Kymera Dance, Balance Dance Theater, and Ballet Noir, where his artistry was shaped by a rigorous commitment to modern and contemporary dance, African traditions, jazz, and theatrical forms. On stage, he has appeared in the Tony Award–winning Broadway musical FELA! and in Diane Paulus and Sergio Trujillo’s Invisible Thread. His television and film appearances include Saturday Night Live with Chance the Rapper, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, MTV’s Daddy’s Girls, NBC’s Upfronts, and the feature films Bolden, Freedom, and Hal King. As a choreographer, he has created works for institutions ranging from Thelma Hill Performing Arts Center and Emerging Artist Theatre’s Spark Festival to LIU Post Concert Dance Company and the NYC Department of Education, with pieces such as Lillian’s Blues, Anti-Domini, Kairos Divide, The Miles Davis Suite, and A Ramp to Paradise reflecting his commitment to innovation and historical preservation.

Beyond the stage, Herbert has cultivated a multidisciplinary practice that bridges dance with media, film, and cultural production. In 2017 he joined MusicXclusives, a New York–based music media company, as project manager, where he expanded his expertise in journalism, public relations, marketing, brand development, and social media strategy. Over three years, he organized nearly 150 interviews and events with artists including Future, Akon, Miguel, Tory Lanez, Tamia, Jonathan McReynolds, Mario, and Mona Scott-Young. His work brought him behind the scenes of some of the nation’s biggest cultural events, from the BET Awards and the Grammy Awards to Essence Festival, Summer Jam, Rolling Loud, and A3C Festival, where he learned how music, media, and storytelling converge to shape collective experience. His curiosity has also led him into film and fashion, where he has produced and directed music videos, served as assistant director and production manager for the web series How to Make It Big, and partnered with designers Lee and Ben Copperwheat to launch a men’s fashion start-up.

At the heart of Herbert’s creative work is the belief that dance is more than performance—it is cultural testimony, a vessel of memory, and a promise to the future. His choreography reflects his conviction that movement is a form of anthropology, where every gesture carries history and every rhythm reveals resilience. Inspired by pioneers such as Katherine Dunham, Herbert’s work honors the African diasporic traditions that shaped American culture while weaving in contemporary voices and aesthetics. He often describes his choreography as a “walking museum,” one that brings the lessons of the past into dialogue with the urgencies of the present. His time with Balance Dance Theater, where rehearsals doubled as explorations of African cosmology, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the legacies of jazz greats like Duke Ellington and Buddy Bolden, further cemented his understanding that dance is a living archive—one that must be preserved, celebrated, and shared.