MASS

(2006)

I made this when I turned 30. The first time we did it I asked 30 people who had been an important part of my life as a choreographer to be in it. We did it at the Rogue Buddha Art Gallery, one of my favorite places in Minneapolis, with a series of improvised rules. Audience members wore headphones and passed 20 portable CD players, each playing different music selections amongst themselves at scheduled intervals. Some audience members correlated their experience of interdependence and cooperation; separation and inclusion, with that of the performers. It was simultaneously mundane and celebratory and I was very, very happy.


Sound design by 
James Everest

Office, Minneapolis, MN, US612.597.7400emily@catalystdance.com

Emily Johnson / Catalyst is based on Mannahatta in Lenapehoking. We work to pay respect to Lenape homeland, people and ancestors past, present, and future by organizing with communities from the Lenape diaspora to build pathways for Lenapeyok return. We have been taught to name Lenape Nations and say cama’i to our relatives from Delaware Tribe of Indians in Bartlesville, OK; Delaware Nation of Oklahoma in Anadarko, OK; Stockbridge-Munsee and Mohican Community in Wisconsin; Moravian Delaware of the Thames in Ontario, Canada; Munsee-Delaware Nation at Munceytown in Ontario, Canada; Delaware of Six Nations in Ontario, Canada. 

We strive to be in good relations with our kin—human and more than human—and in effort to support growing kinstillatory relations and sovereign, liberated futures we are anti-colonial and abolitionist in all capacities. We are committed to on-the-ground water and land protection, consistent decolonization work, and Land Back. 

Quyanaqvaa-lli elpeni to all Sovereign Nations, Indigenous and First Nations people who live in relation to and from Lenapehoking and upon whose lands we work and tour.

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