Contributor

Emily Johnson is an artist who makes body-based work. She is a land- and water-protector and an activist for justice, sovereignty, and well-being. A Bessie Award-winning choreographer, Guggenheim Fellow, and recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award, she is based in Lenapehoking/New York City. Johnson is of the Yup’ik Nation, and since 1998 has created work that considers the experience of sensing and seeing performance. Her dances function as portals and care processions, they engage audienceship within and through space, time, and environment—interacting with a place's architecture, peoples, history, and role in building futures. Johnson is trying to make a world where performance is part of life; where performance is an integral connection to each other, our environment, our stories, our past, present and future.

Johnson hosts monthly ceremonial fires on Mannahatta in partnership with Abrons Arts Center and Karyn Recollet. She was a co-compiler of the document Creating New Futures: Guidelines for Ethics and Equity in the Performing Arts, and is part of an advisory group (with Reuben Roqueni, Ed Bourgeois, Lori Pourier, Ronee Penoi, and Vallejo Gantner) developing a First Nations Performing Arts Network.