Mona Jean Cedar Bio
Mona Jean Cedar loves her beautiful home in Los Angeles, the city that sustains her eclectic
endeavors of mixing sign languages, dance and poetry.
Academically, she received an AA in Dance and an AS in
American Sign Language (ASL) Interpreting, from El Camino College, then blended
choreography and sign language into a new communicative arts genre for her
Bachelors in Deaf Studies from California State University at Northridge where she
choreographed with ASL, Japanese, Russian, Germany, Italian, and Dutch Sign
Languages.
Other exceptional educational experiences include receiving a
scholarship for the Julliard’s seminar on Theatrical Interpreting for
Broadway and being awarded a full scholarship from the oldest
deaf theater in the world, The National Theater of the Deaf, to their
Actors’ Academy. She also holds a Comprehensive Certification as a
Pilates Instructor through Body Arts and Science Inc.
Professionally, she has danced in Rudy Perez’s post-modern dance ensemble,
Collage Dance Theater’s site specific company, Avaz’s folk dance group along
with ballet, tap, and jazz shows in tours of Europe and Japan in a variety of situations.
Her unique choreography with signed languages was presented at the famous international
Deaf Festival, DeafWay II, in Washington, D. C. and at the first ever International Deaf Dance Festival
in Paris, France as the only hearing presenter.
As a poet Mona Jean is singular in performing her compositions with ASL in venues all over Southern California for the
past 20 years. On the national scene she has been a competitor, performing her originally composed poems with ASL
on a National Poetry Slam team in Seattle in 1996 and an interpreter, interpreting the National Poetry Slam finals
since 2002. Every year since 2006 she has been the resident interpreter for the Coupe du Monde (International
World Poetry Slam) in Paris, France. In 2009 she was invited to tour Germany as a Slam Poet.