Emily Johnson
2018
Artists
INTERCHANGE 2018
Emily Johnson came to Australia to participate in the Adhocracy Residency at Vitalstatistix in Adelaide to develop her new work Kinstillatory Mappings in Light and Dark Matter with a team of collaborators. The work offers a framework for being in decolonial practices of embodiment, site-responsive choreographic practices and their connection to land, and the radical relationships that are created through dance making and other forms of artistic activation.
Following on from her Adhocracy Residency, Emily traveled to Sydney to meet with local First Nations artists and arts organisations whilst in residence at Critical Path.
“The artists in the Vitals residency were so keen to be part of an ‘unbecoming’ – a name / process we decided for ourselves. We shared our individual methods of working and experimented with one another’s processes as we set to ‘unbecome’ systemic ways of working in (often) colonized frameworks and institutions. We spent a great deal of time outdoors and a great deal of time talking. People danced who do not dance, people offered surprising things. We did an extraordinary amount of work.”
BIO
Emily Johnson
Emily Johnson is a First Nations artist from USA. Originally from Alaska and of Yup’ik descent, she is currently based in New York City where she is director of dance company Catalyst. A Guggenheim Fellow and Bessie award winning choreographer, she creates work that considers the experience of sensing and seeing performance. Her dances function as installations, engaging audiences within and through a space and environment, interacting with a place’s architecture, history, and role in community. Emily’s four-part work SHORE was presented at Yirramboi First Nations Arts Festival in Melbourne, 2017.
Image credit: Emily Johnson Adhocracy Residency 2018. Photo by Vitalstatistix.