About the Artist
Julie B. Johnson, PhD
Dance Artist & Educator
Areas of focus: embodied memory, archival research, community-oriented dance practices, abolitionist feminism,
Africanist aesthetics in contemporary dance
Areas of focus: embodied memory, archival research, community-oriented dance practices, abolitionist feminism,
Africanist aesthetics in contemporary dance
Julie B. Johnson, PhD, is a dance artist and educator focused on participatory dance and embodied memory mapping to amplify the histories, lived experiences, and bodily knowledge of Black women as a strategy towards collective liberation for all. She does this work joyfully with community partners through her creative practice, Moving Our Stories, and at Spelman College where she serves as an Assistant Professor and former Chair of Dance Performance & Choreography. She brings this work to the publishing realm as a Co-Founder/Consulting Editor of The Dancer-Citizen, an online open-access scholarly dance journal exploring the work of socially engaged artists.
Since 2019, Johnson has been exploring the history of Black women’s incarcerated labor, resistance, and restoration in Georgia through Idle Crimes & Heavy Work (ICHW) a Moving Our Stories initiative in collaboration with Tambra Omiyale Harris, Giwayen Mata, and a collective of Community Visioners. This initiative grew out of her work as Co-Director and Choreographer for The Georgia Incarceration Performance Project (GAIPP) with colleagues from Spelman College and The University of Georgia.
Johnson was a 2022-23 Dance USA Artist Fellow; a Partners for Change Artist as part of the inaugural 2020-23 cohort through Alternate ROOTS and The Surdna Foundation; a 2021 Distinguished Fellow in-residence at the Hambidge Center made possible through the Georgia Council on the Arts Scholarship; and a member of the 2020-21 cohort of the Jacob’s Pillow Curriculum in Motion Institute. In 2019, she received the Arbes Award and Black Spatial Relics Residency Award, and she was a Hughley Artist Fellow as part of the final 2018-2019 cohort. Johnson earned a PhD in Dance Studies at Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance, researching meanings and experiences of ‘community’ in Philadelphia-based West African Dance classes.
Collaborators
I am beyond grateful to all the brilliant collaborators I have had the honor of working with, past and present!
CREATIVE COLLABORATORS
Tambra Omiyale Harris, Choreographer, Educator, and Artistic Director of Giwayen Mata
Hawkins, Choreographer and Spelman College Dance Faculty
Christiana McLeod Horn, Choreographer and Spelman College Administrative Assistant
COMMUNITY PARTNERS
Giwayan Mata, “award-winning, all-sistah, African dance, percussion, and vocal ensemble”
Donna Stephens and Genia Billingsley, The Chattahoochee Brick Company Descendants Coalition
Victoria Lemos, Historian, Tour Guide, and Host of the Archive Atlanta Podcast
Robert Thompson, Historian and Tour Guide, Insight Cultural Tourism
COMMUNITY VISIONERS, IDLE CRIMES & HEAVY WORK
CREATIVE COLLABORATORS
Tambra Omiyale Harris, Choreographer, Educator, and Artistic Director of Giwayen Mata
Hawkins, Choreographer and Spelman College Dance Faculty
Christiana McLeod Horn, Choreographer and Spelman College Administrative Assistant
COMMUNITY PARTNERS
Giwayan Mata, “award-winning, all-sistah, African dance, percussion, and vocal ensemble”
Donna Stephens and Genia Billingsley, The Chattahoochee Brick Company Descendants Coalition
Victoria Lemos, Historian, Tour Guide, and Host of the Archive Atlanta Podcast
Robert Thompson, Historian and Tour Guide, Insight Cultural Tourism
COMMUNITY VISIONERS, IDLE CRIMES & HEAVY WORK
- Holly Smith, Spelman College Archivist
- Lauren Neefe, Writer/Educator/Podcast Producer
- Robert Thompson, Historian and Tour Guide, Insight Cultural Tourism
- shady Radical, Founder of T.R.A.P. (The Radical Archive of Preservation)
- Dominique Harris
- Celeste Miller, Choreographer and Dance Educator
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY / COPYRIGHT All images, text, graphics and html coding appearing in the Julie B. Johnson website are the exclusive intellectual property of Julie B. Johnson and Moving Our Stories, LLC and are protected by United States and international copyright laws. JulieBJohnson.com may not be used, copied, downloaded, reproduced, manipulated, or transmitted by use of computer or other electronic means or any other method or means now or hereafter known, without the written permission of Julie B. Johnson and Moving Our Stories, LLC. © 2024. All Rights Reserved.