Emily Johnson

Last updated
Emily Johnson
Born
Emily August Johnson

(1976-03-19) March 19, 1976 (age 47)
Soldotna, Alaska
Occupation(s)dancer, writer, choreographer, artistic director
Years active1998-present
Career
Current groupCatalyst
DancesSHORE, Niicugni, The Thank-you Bar, Heat & Life, Something More Useful Then, One For Resolve, Plain Old Andrea, With a Gun, Pamela, Fierce:Whole
Website Official Site catalystdance.com

Emily Johnson (born March 19, 1976 in Soldotna, Alaska) [1] is an American dancer, [2] writer, and choreographer of Yup'ik descent. [3] [4] She grew up in Sterling, Alaska and is based in New York City. [5] She is artistic director of her performance company, Emily Johnson/Catalyst. Johnson is a organizer for the First Nations Dialogues New York/Lenapehoking. [6] She has worked part-time at Birchbark Books, an independent bookstore owned by author Louise Erdrich. [3] [4]

Contents

Performative, administrative and choreographic work

Johnson has danced for Minneapolis-based choreographers Morgan Thorson, Hijack, and BodyCartography Project, [2] and collaborated with New York-based playwright/ director Lisa D'Amour and music ensemble So Percussion, as well as Korean visual artist Minouk Lim.

In 1998 Johnson founded a dance company, Catalyst, in Minneapolis, after graduating from the University of Minnesota with a degree in dance. Since then, she has created 22 original performance pieces, as well as several collaborative projects with other artists, including SHORE, the third part of a trilogy of works that began with The Thank-you Bar (2009) and Niicugni (2012), and which was performed on tour through 2015. [7] She has been central in organizing the Indigenous gathering Knowledge of Wounds starting in 2017. [8]

Choreographic style

Johnson states that she began dance as a response to the grief of a close friend dying. [9]

Johnson's dances "...often function as installations", and her choreography "...considers the experience of sensing and seeing performance." [10] In a presentation at the University of Minnesota in 2014, she talked about her choreographic practice as dance responding to the world. [11]

Dance and community

One distinguishing characteristic of Johnson's work is community involvement in particular located places. [12] Among the motivating concerns for The thank you bar (trilogy part 1) were community and tribal responses to displacement. [13] In Vermont, [14] Minnesota, [15] Alaska, California, and Arizona, [16] she invited members of the community to sew fish skin together to form lanterns. These lantern were subsequently hung, with lights and speakers inside, to illuminate halls where Niicugni (trilogy part 2) was performed. [16] Shore (trilogy part 3) included community feasting. [17] Johnson organized a recent work, Then a cunning voice and a night we spend gazing at stars, with community quiltmaking workshops. The quilts became part of the set for the dance performance. [7] [9]

This community involvement in dance echoes other dance forms, which are often less formal and outside of the usual definition of "contemporary" dance, such as participatory dance Participation Dance and ceremonial dance Ceremonial Dance. Johnson's oeuvre may be seen as a bridge between community and cultural contexts, on the one hand, and the world of contemporary artistry, on the other hand. As Vermont Performance Lab director Sara Coffey observes, there may be a tension between artistic vision and openness to community: "I think it’s very brave in the contemporary dance world to let all these others into your work... You don’t always have control of what that's going to be. I think Emily, as an artist, wants a place to rub off on her work as much as she wants to rub off on the place where she’s performing". [12] Johnson attempts to resolve this tension through dynamism, described in the Anchorage Museum's Polar Lab blog as using "dance as a framework for constant transformation that refuses to stabilize, intervention immediately opens up for exchange, conversation and partnership" (anonymous account, [18] ).

Awards

Emily Johnson / Catalyst was awarded a 2012 Outstanding Production ("new art, dance and performance") Bessie Award [19] for The Thank-you Bar, created and performed by Johnson with collaborators James Everest and Joel Pickard.

Related Research Articles

Dixon Place is a theater organization in New York City dedicated to the development of works-in-progress from a broad range of performers and artists. It exists to serve the creative needs of artists—emerging, mid-career and established—who are creating new work in theater, dance, music, literature, puppetry, performance, variety and visual arts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bebe Miller</span> American choreographer, dancer, and director

Bebe Miller is an American choreographer, dancer, and director.

Ralph Lemon is an American choreographer, company director, writer, visual artist and a conceptualist. Raised in a religious environment, he developed his artistic creativity as a child. Early in his career, Lemon used painting as a source of expression, and as he discovered dance, utilized movement as a physical means of expression.

Ann Carlson is an American dancer, choreographer and performance artist whose work explores contemporary social issues. She has performed throughout the United States and internationally and has won a number of awards.

Margaret Jenkins is a postmodern choreographer based in San Francisco, California. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1980 and in 2003, San Francisco mayor, Willie Brown, declared April 24 to be Margaret Jenkins Day.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arts Foundation of New Zealand</span> Arts organisation in New Zealand

'The Arts Foundation of New Zealand Te Tumu Toi is a New Zealand arts organisation that supports artistic excellence and facilitates private philanthropy through raising funds for the arts and allocating it to New Zealand artists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonah Bokaer</span> American choreographer and media artist (born 1981)

Jonah Bokaer is an American choreographer and media artist. He works on live performances in the United States and elsewhere, including choreography, digital media, cross-disciplinary collaborations, and social enterprise.

Cristian Amigo is an American composer, improviser, guitarist, sound designer, and ethnomusicologist. His compositional and performing output includes blues and soul, music for the theater, chamber and orchestral music, opera, avant-jazz and rock music, and art/pop song. He has also recorded solo albums on the innova, Deep Ecology and BA labels. Amigo earned a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from UCLA where he focused on the music of Chile, Peru, and Argentina, as well as anthropological theory, critical studies, and intercultural aesthetics. While in graduate school, he was second guitarist to the Peruvian Afro-Criollo guitarist Carlos Hayre, with whom he played in concerts and festivals including the World Festival of Sacred Music. He is currently composer-in-residence at INTAR Theater in New York City and Music/Design/Production Faculty @ CalArts School of Theater Department of Experience Design and Production in Valencia, California.

Ain Gordon is an American playwright, theatrical director and actor based in New York City. His work frequently deals with the interstices of history, focusing on people and events which are often overlooked or marginalized in "official" histories. His style combines elements of traditional playwrighting with aspects of performance art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Camille A. Brown</span> American dancer

Camille A. Brown is a dancer, choreographer, director and dance educator. She is the Founder & Artistic Director of Camille A. Brown & Dancers, and has congruently choreographed commissioned pieces for dance companies, Broadway shows, and universities. Brown started her career as a dancer in Ronald K. Brown’s Evidence, A Dance Company, and was a guest artist with Rennie Harris Puremovement, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Brown has choreographed major Broadway shows such as Choir Boy, Once on This Island and Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert! that aired on NBC. Brown also teaches dance and gives lectures to audiences at various universities such as Long Island University, Barnard College and ACDFA, among others.

Donna Uchizono is an American choreographer.

Nejla Y. Yatkin is a German-American choreographer.

Sarah Michelson is a British choreographer and dancer who lives and works in New York City, New York. Her work is characterized by demanding physicality and repetition, rigorous formal structures, and inventive lighting and sound design. She was one of two choreographers whose work was included in the 2012 Whitney Biennial, the first time dance was presented as part of the bi-annual exhibition. Her work has also been staged at The Walker Art Center, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, The Kitchen, and the White Oak Dance Project. She received New York Dance and Performance awards for Group Experience (2002), Shadowmann Parts One and Two (2003), and Dogs (2008). She has served as associate director of The Center for Movement Research and associate curator of dance at The Kitchen. Currently choreographer in residence at Bard's Fisher Center, she is the recipient of their four-year fellowship to develop a commissioned work with Bard students and professional dancers.

Larissa FastHorse is a Native American playwright and choreographer based in Santa Monica, California. FastHorse grew up in South Dakota, where she began her career as a ballet dancer and choreographer but was forced into an early retirement after ten years of dancing due to an injury. Returning to an early interest in writing, she became involved in Native American drama, especially the Native American film community. Later she began writing and directing her own plays, several of which are published through Samuel French and Dramatic Publishing. With playwright and performer Ty Defoe, FastHorse co-founded Indigenous Direction, a "consulting firm that helps organizations and individuals who want to create accurate work by, for and with Indigenous peoples." Indigenous Direction's clients include the Guthrie Theater. FastHorse is a past vice chair of the Theatre Communications Group, a service organization for professional non-profit American theatre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Teri Rofkar</span> Native American weaver and educator (1956–2016)

Teri Rofkar, or Chas' Koowu Tla'a (1956–2016), was a Tlingit weaver and educator from Sitka, Alaska. She specialized in Ravenstail designs and spruce root baskets.

Jeanne Ruddy is an American dancer, choreographer, artistic director, educator, writer and founder and collaborator of multiple dance projects. She danced with the Martha Graham Dance Company in New York City and later began the Jeanne Ruddy Dance Company in Philadelphia, PA.

Faye Driscoll is an American dancer, choreographer, and director. Her works have been presented throughout the United States and around the world. On Broadway, Driscoll choreographed Young Jean Lee's play Straight White Men. Driscoll also choreographed Josephine Decker's film Madeline's Madeline.

Mary Rosanne Katzke is an American filmmaker, writer, and photographer known for Alaska-based documentaries bringing attention to various social and healthcare issues, including sexual assault, domestic violence, mental illness, homelessness, Alzheimer's disease, traumatic brain injury and breast cancer. Since 1982, she has produced four dozen grant-funded documentaries through her nonprofit production company Affinityfilms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rosy Simas</span>

Rosy Simas is a Haudenosaunee artist. She is an enrolled member of the Seneca Nation of Indians. Simas is a dance and transdisciplinary artist and the Founder and Artistic Director of Rosy Simas Danse.

Gabri Christa is a Dutch performance artist, choreographer, professor, film-maker and writer. She is an associate professor of Professional Practice at Barnard College and also the Director for the Movement Lab there.

References

  1. ↑ Mike Dunham, Of bars and blackfish, Anchorage Daily News, October 3, 2009
  2. 1 2 Tillotson, Kristin (22 October 2012). "Dance company not afraid to go there". Star Tribune. Minneapolis, United States. Retrieved 6 January 2013.
  3. 1 2 Kourlas, Gia (4 January 2013). "Shedding Light on the Last Frontier". New York Times. New York, United States. Retrieved 6 January 2013.
  4. 1 2 ""COIL" / Emily Johnson". New Yorker. New York, United States. 14 January 2013. Retrieved 6 January 2013.
  5. ↑ Hughes, Zachariah (3 May 2019). "In Anchorage, land acknowledgments are gaining ground". Alaska Public Media. Retrieved 7 May 2019.
  6. ↑ Burke, Shiobhan (1 January 2019). "A Showcase for the Abundance and Breadth of Indigenous Performance". New York Times. New York, United States. Retrieved 1 January 2019.
  7. 1 2 "Then a Cunning Voice and a Night We Spend Gazing at Stars" (PDF) (Press release). Mededith Boggia Creative Producers. Retrieved December 31, 2011.
  8. ↑ Nyong'o, Tavia (27 January 2020). ""Knowledge of Wounds" at Performance Space New York". Artforum. New York, NY. Retrieved 4 February 2020.
  9. 1 2 Simpson, Michael Wade (13 July 2018). "Dancing the unspeakable: Emily Johnson". Santa Fe New Mexican. Retrieved 7 May 2019.
  10. ↑ "Emily Johnson Dancer/Choreographer". Twin Cities Public Television. Minneapolis, United States. 3 February 2011. Retrieved 6 January 2013.[ permanent dead link ]
  11. ↑ "IAS Thursdays: February 20, 2014". Archived from the original on 2013-12-18. Retrieved 2014-02-22.
  12. 1 2 Kourlas, Gia. "Emily Johnson's Alaska-Inspired 'Niicugni'".
  13. ↑ http://artsfuse.org/77265/fuse-dance-review-the-joy-of-swimming-upstream-emily-johnsons-niicugni/, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/arts/dance/emily-johnsons-alaska-inspired-niicugni.html?_r=0
  14. ↑ vplsara (2 March 2011). "Emily Johnson, Vermont Performance Lab Artist, January 2011 Residency" – via YouTube.
  15. ↑ "Emily Johnson - Native Arts and Cultures Foundation". 4 November 2010.
  16. 1 2 Johnson, Emily (7 August 2013). "Niicugni Trailer (5 min)" – via Vimeo.
  17. ↑ Edwards, Jennifer (17 April 2015). "Emily Johnson Shares SHORE in Lenapehoking/New York City".
  18. ↑ "Curated Conversations - Polar Lab at the Anchorage Museum". Polar Lab at the Anchorage Museum. Archived from the original on 2016-04-15. Retrieved 2016-04-01.
  19. ↑ "The Bessies" (Press release). Dance NYC. 16 October 2012. Retrieved 6 January 2013.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.