Ms. Johnson is a 30-year veteran of the dance field, has appeared in over 50 tours and taught for dance companies and colleges on five continents. An honors graduate of the National Ballet School, she was a soloist with The National Ballet of Canada and principal dancer and researcher with Ballet Frankfurt.A world-renowned expert on choreographer William Forsythe, Ms. Johnson has been a close collaborator of Forsythe’s for over two decades. She stages and produces Forsythe’s ballets on companies worldwide, including The Paris Opera Ballet, La Scala, The Norwegian National Ballet, Alterballetto, Netherlands Dans Theater, Scottish Ballet, Finnish National Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Batsheva Dance Company, American Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Ballet, and Boston Ballet. Her recent choreographic work includes The Copier for Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet; Room/Room for NYU; 27 for 17 for The New School University; As Yet Unnamed for the Movement Invention Project Collective; Folding Articulation for Princeton University, Waterline for Barnard College at Columbia University, Solo for Jeff for The Juilliard School; Strut for Boston Ballet II (2017 premiere), and a new commissioned work for The National Ballet School of Canada’s Assemblée Internationale 2017.At Harvard, Ms. Johnson has choreographed 13 original works for students including, The Art of Survival, for Harvard’s 10th Anniversary Observance of September 11th and a collaboration between the Mahindra Center for Humanities and the American Repertory Theater 2011; RE: RE: RE: a dance installation in 2011/12, and works which were a part of curricular courses: The Sound of Distance in Itself in 2012, Dog in a Sweater in 2013, Paper Wing and SEESAW in 2014, LOOK UP and Degrees of Difference in 2015, and WHAT MOVES YOU? with Francesca Harper and Mario Zambrano and WUNDER with artist-in-residence Sidra Bell for the Harvard Dance Project in 2016.

JILL JOHNSON

Digital technology allows us to communicate and use imagination in all kinds of ways, but I do think it has created a barrier for just simple interactions. I think it has sped everything up because we can access things so quickly...I think that has sort of an isolation which then compels this kind of commercial sublimation of isolation, loneliness, and human.Keeping people interested in dance is exposing folks, no matter how big or small an audience, to the different ways of seeing.How can you place a value on solace, joy, or tenderness and vulnerability. I think that is what differentiates dance from any other art. I mean it is special in itself. It is your body language and it is really an inner expression as well.I learn on a daily basis. It is a constant grueling process and that is what is so incredible about the arts is that you never stop learning.

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Describing Forsythe’s Choreography for Step Text:

I had never seen anything like it and I thought, “this is possible?”...The articulation, the structures, the musicality, and the curtain coming in and out was just radical and amazing.I just wanted to be a part of it.If you remain curious just about anything as an artist, you can make it compelling...it reminds me of what a beautiful visual artist, Jack Whitten, talks about. He said that when people ask him what art is about, he says it’s giving structure to feelings. Also this notion that we can give meaning to something without it being a singular narrative. Something can have an individualized meaning. If it is meaningful in the conveyance of the dancer, everyone seeing that dancer or the group of dancers performing will receive something different that resonates with them in their life. 

Dance articulates the ideas for which there are no words. So you know it can be what it is for you as a member of the public or an audience member or whatever it is for you in that moment. And you know it could be different tomorrow...“dance is an analog practice. So I think there is a certain cachet about that. It is tricky for people that are less familiar with dance. It requires a lot of time to practice over and over and the repetition is essential for finding that meaning. To find the efficiency of the execution of the step, but then what is it imbued with and how are you doing it.

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Well, I think dance chose me. I’ve always felt that it was a vocation and a calling...pulling me in that direction. I think that I’ve been lucky enough that I just always knew I wanted to do it. And in fact, I don’t think I even knew that it was dance, it was just who I was, to move in the world and move to music.Describing Forsythe’s Choreography for “Step Text”I had never seen anything like it and I thought, “this is possible?”...The articulation, the structures, the musicality, and the curtain coming in and out was just radical and amazing. I just wanted to be a part of it.If you remain curious just about anything as an artist, you can make it compelling...it reminds me of what a beautiful visual artist, Jack Whitten, talks about. He said that when people ask me (him) what art is about, I (he) say its giving structure to feelings. Also this notion that we can give meaning to something without it being a singular narrative. Something can have an individualized meaning. If it is meaningful in the conveyance of the dancer, everyone seeing that dancer or the group of dancers performing will receive something different that resonates with them in their life.