Choreography
Freedom Study 1
Land/Home Promo from Sheena Johnson on Vimeo.
CLICK HERE to Read a Review of Freedom Study 1 from Radio Show Host and Writer Wanda Sabir
Freedom Study, is a collaboration between Chris Evans, dancer/video artist/cellist/composer, and Sheena Johnson, dancer/choreographer, that asks the question, “When have you felt most free?” The project explores the question of what it means to be a free, whole individual within the constraints of American social and economic inequalities. Our premise is that experiences of momentarily freedom provide the kernels for building greater individual and communal freedom. Sources for the work include field interviews and Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Freedom Study is envisioned as a series exploring different aspects of what it means to be free. "Freedom Study 1" premiered Feb 2011 as part of the Black Choreographers Festival.
Land/Home
Land/Home Promo from Sheena Johnson on Vimeo.
CLICK ABOVE to See Video, Photos and Audience Reaction to Land/Home
We have all been displaced from our homelands. Some forcefully, some by choice. Historically, land has been integral to our understanding of ourselves in the world and our humanity. The advent of the modern age has pushed us farther away from our food production and the physicality of meeting our basic needs. How do we understand our connections and disconnections to land as a way to inform us about our current condition? "Land/Home" is an excavation of self in space. Land is where I am; Home is where I yearn to be. Utilizing my experiences at Inkboat’s Dance On Land workshop in June 2010 and my experience growing up in the black church, I will look deep at the spectrum of connections and disconnections that my body has to land in defining this notion of home. As human beings we each seek, crave and create home for ourselves. The overarching question for me is how do I use my bodily encounters with and impositions upon land to inform how I seek, crave and create this place called home. How do we create home as people displaced from our homelands? Land/Home premiered Jan 2011 as part of the Women on the Way Festival.
SOME PAST CHOREOGRAPHIC PROJECTS-
MIGRATIONS (Feb 2010)
B/T YOU AND ME (Oct 2009)
DISPLACE (Feb 2009)
MOVEMENT FROM THE MARGINS (July 2006)
PROFESSIONAL PERFORMANCES -
DANCER, Alicia Ohs & Choyoh! Productions. Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, San Francisco, CA. July 2010
Performed in the world premier of “when i die, i will be dead” choreographed by Alicia Ohs.
FEATURED ARTIST, UC Berkeley, Empowering Women of Color Conference, Berkeley, CA. March 2010
Premiered solo excerpt of “Migrations” utilizing speech by Sojourner Truth titled “Ain’t I a Woman.”
FEATURED CHOREOGRAPHER, Dance Mission, BCF, San Francisco, CA. Feb 2010
Selected to be in the Black Choreographer’s Festival (BCF) Artist Mentorship Program (AMP). Received mentorship by established choreographers Deborah Vaughan, Robert Henry Johnson and Raissa Simpson. Premiered ensemble work entitled “Migrations” inspired by literature and art from the Great Migration period in U.S. history.
FEATURED ARTIST, Museum of the African Diaspora (MOAD), See.Think.Dance. Productions, San Francisco, CA. Oct 2009
Premiered duet (one dancer, one musician) entitled “B/t You & Me” in collaboration w/ free jazz percussionist Marshall Trammell.
DANCER, Motif Performance Group, Black Choreographers Festival, Oakland, CA. Feb 09.
Performed in the world premier of work "Interludes to Intimacy" choreographed by Rashad Prigden.
FEATURED ARTIST, Dance Mission, Black Choreographers Festival, San Francisco, CA. Feb 2009
Premiered solo work entitled “Dis’place”.
FEATURED ARTIST, CounterPULSE, Second Sundays, San Francisco, CA. May 2008
Premiered work in progress “Yearning” that explores the ways we as women come to see and know each other.
FEATURED ARTIST, Red Poppy Arts House, See.Think.Dance. Productions, San Francisco, CA. Nov 2007 & May 2008
Premiered solos works “Pieces of Self Scattered” & “See Line Women”, respectively.
MEMBER/CHOREOGRAPHER, Nzinga Arts Collective. Philadelphia, PA. Jan 2006-July 2006
Worked with dancers, performance artist and visual artist of this all women of color collective to create and produce “Movement From the Margins: An Artist Response to Katrina”, MFM, while living in Philadelphia.
AWARDEE, Leeway Foundation Art & Change Grant, Philadelphia, PA. Feb 2006
Awarded $2,500 to co-produce and choreograph “Movement From the Margins: An Artist Response to Katrina”, (MFM). MFM, a multi-media performance piece, premiered in Philadelphia in July 2006. It serves as a fundraiser for rebuilding efforts in the Gulf Coast.
