Anastasia Johnson

Anastasia Johnson (she/her) is a dance artist, performer, educator, curator, and choreographer born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. After receiving her B.A in Dance along with a PreK-12 Virginia Teaching Licensure in Dance Arts from James Madison University in 2017, Johnson relocated to Maryland to further her artistry in the DMV area. Currently, she holds the title as Education Director, Energizers Creative Arts Summer Camp Director, and Teaching Artist at Dance Place in Washington, DC. Since relocating, Johnson has performed with companies and artists such as, Choreographers Collaboration Project, VT Dance Company, Extreme Lengths Production, Rachel Luebbert, Juanita Maria Dance Company, Contra-Tiempo, and Coyaba Dance Company, Liz Miller, Jamison Curcio& Shanice Mason, ReVision Dance Company, Soka Tribe, and New Growth Collective. Johnson has been developing her own movement based company called A.J. Collabs (AJC). AJC uses the vehicle of education, community engagement, collaboration, performance, and choreography to shed light on the black experience, including but not limited to: black love, black girl magic, black church, black artistry, black joy, and black oppression. A.J. Collabs has had the opportunity to perform at the 2019 Small Plates Festival, Works In Progress Showing, Ascending Choreographer’s Festival, National Choreography Month DC, Black Choreographer Festival, Layers V.3, Dance in the DMV Festival, Richmond Dance Festival and Coalescence: A Visual and Performing Arts Showing. Along with Molly-Kate Bachalter, and Kaitlin Pennigton, Johnson is also the co-founder of Coalescence, an artist development company that facilitates a space professional and creative growth across all disciplines of art by encouraging limitless exploration of personal artistic expression and an ever expanding connection of collaborative artists. Coalescence highlights artists through our presentation series, Coalescence: A Visual and Performing Arts Showing, and enrichment program, PREP Arts. Johnson has had the pleasure of being an alumni of the 202Creates Residency Program, a former Emerging Artist for the BlackLight Summit Emerging Artist Laboratory, has been featured in a DanceTeacher Magazine article, and holds a certificate in Women’s Entrepreneurship from Cornell University.

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