news | catalyst, dances by emily johnson

november 2011

The Thank-you Bar in New York

We opened last night with a wonderfully warm crowd here in NYC.
The Thank -you Bar is housed beautifully on the New York Live Arts stage and I am honored to be here. We would love to share it with you!

Please come see the show!
You can get tickets here, or call the NYLA Box Office: 212.924.0077
Shows times:
Tonight (Thursday) 11/10 at 7:30 and 9:30pm
Friday 11/11 at 7:30 and 9:30pm
Saturday 11/12 at 5:00 and 7:30pm,  BLACKFISH concert at 9:00pm

Anna Marie Shogren did an interview with me on
Critcal Correspondence:

An excerpt:
Anna:  I am curious..working with a physical medium, do the ideas feed into each other? Do you feel like there was a different way of dealing with movement?

Emily: Often I will dance and I will try to put my mind somewhere else, and I will try to be back in Alaska. But, that’s too broad. I will find a specific place, or a specific time, or a specific visual landscape to do it in. A physical interaction between past and present, that’s obviously only actually present. But, somehow, for me at those times, it merges. It becomes where there isn’t that much space between past and present and future. I think that is the truth about our physical body, is that we are all those times at once. Maybe physical action is the only true place that you can find that sublime sense of time where it is all at once. I can be standing in Minneapolis but, I can also at the same time, with intention, be at my grandma’s house in Alaska or I could be in New York. Maybe talking about it makes it seem like that can’t be true, but it really is.

We're featured on CultureBot
And here's an interview with This Week in New York

While in New York
I've been rehearsing our NEW dance, Niicugni with the Amazing Aretha Aoki. I also spent a day rehearsing with SO PERCUSSION at their studio. We're working together on their new piece, Where We Live, for premiere in 2012.


Rehearsing with SO

BLACKFISH: 8CD Collection
Two weeks ago BLACKFISH (James Everest and Joel Pickard) released a gorgeous limited edition, letter-pressed, 8 CD collection of concert recordings from the past two years. Tallahassee, Homer, Tulsa, Portland, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Houston and Brattleboro.  You can listen at the BLACKFISH bandcamp site, or buy it at the new Catalyst Store. 

THIS IS DISPLACEMENT: Exhibition Catalogue
We made a book! It's a dream come true! Images from the exhibit, stories and biographies from the artists, a foreword by Heid Erdrich, and ten languages: Ojibwe, Dakota, Lakota, Diné, Otoe, Cherokee, Iñupiaq, Ponca, Eastern Cherokee, English.
You can get your own copy: here.

Quyana-Thank you to EVERYONE who helped to make our fall fundraiser a success. Thank you for joining us, sending us your good wishes and supporting our work with your generous donations! 

Love from NY, 
Emily

September 2011

Emily Johnson/Catalyst Preview Party & Book Launch Benefit

Saturday, Sept 17th at 7pm
Southern Theater
1420 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis

We're having a benefit to support and preview our new dance installation, Niicugni (Listen), and celebrate the release of our THIS IS DISPLACEMENT exhibition catalogue. Enjoy live music, poetry, and dance performances in the theater, h'ordeuvres and cocktails in the lobby, a crafted silent auction, and DJ Jen Downham's Groove Garden. Please join us!

These are just some of the spectacular artists whose amazing artworks are part of our crafted silent auction:

Maren Kloppmann!
Alec Soth!
Carolyn Lee Anderson!
Jonathan Whitney!
Andrea Carlson!
Jason Jaglo!

I am thrilled. You can also bid on a handmade salmon-skin lantern, a dance created for you by me, good things from Birchbark Books, and a few more hand-picked items....

Fantastic performances featuring:

James Everest and Bethany Lacktorin, performing excerpts from their original Niicugni installation soundscore. Brilliant Duluth singer songwriter, Toby Thomas Churchill. The sublime poet Jay Bad Heart Bull, whose poems are featured in THIS IS DISPLACEMENT. Jeffrey Skemp's dark, quirky poetry with live musical accompaniment, and 11-year old Olivia Vang, who has some brand new tunes for us& (some of you will remember Olivia from our benefit in 2009....).

We'll also be giving you a little peek into our new dance. It's performed by me, Aretha Aoki, James Everest, Bethany Lacktorin, and Heidi Eckwall. You'll get to check out our brand new fish-skin sound installation up close and even work a bit on making one (a fish-skin lantern) if you'd like.

You will enjoy:
H'ordeuvres by Red Stag Supper Club.

And, of course, there will be:
wine and beer, thanks to ZIPPS.

Hope to see you,
Emily

April 2010

The Thank-you Bar in Oklahoma!

In March we were part of the New Genre Festival at Living Arts of Tulsa, along with great friends Art Spot Productions/Mondo Bizarro and Kristina Wong. The audiences in Tulsa were incredible – I can't wait to go back!

It was quite interesting to perform a piece that is so linked to land/identity in Oklahoma - a land ingrained with the lives and deaths of displaced and relocated peoples - the promises of land “as long as the rivers flow and the grass is green” and the reality of sooners, land grabbers, and lies. The Thank-you Bar is not exactly a “political” piece, but here, it felt political. I was conscious of this and questioning of our role and relatively short relationship to this place. Prior to our performances I reached out to friends from or very familial with Oklahoma. I was graced with personal histories, accounts, and a feeling that doing this piece in Oklahoma was the exact right risk to take. I had some of my most ultimately heartfelt connections to audiences in Oklahoma. One audience member told me the show changed her life and I am humbled by her response.

BLACKFISH performed an amazing concert and I believe a new CD is on it's way. Keep an eye out for BLACKFISH 3: Tulsa, it was recorded in a very live room with the sounds of history creaking up off the floors!

THIS IS DISPLACEMENT: Native Artists Consider the Relationship Between Land & Identity existed in Tulsa because of our collaboration with oklaDADA. oklaDADA is a collective of Indian Artists networking and promoting Indigenous perspectives to create opportunities that give voice to Indian cultural identities. Thank you to all of the artists who contributed to this exhibit, especially Richard Ray Whitman who organized much of this collective work. As I rehearsed down the street, artists were pouring into the exhibit space, bringing paintings, photographs, lithographs – work that spoke so clearly and viscerally to the ills of displacement. Many of these works will now tour with This is Displacement. Please see the news page of my friend and co-curator, Carolyn Lee Anderson for a much more in-depth re-telling of this exhibit. Carolyn and I are both honored to be part of a growing, changing, and alive collection of art.

Quyanarpiitli

-Emily

december 2009

The Thank-you Bar premiere!

We enjoyed a wonderful, sold-out premiere tour of The Thank-you Bar in Alaska in October. BLACKFISH performed 4 concerts in conjunction with this tour (a new CD is forthcoming!) and we celebrated the opening of the related exhibit, This is Displacement: Native Artists Consider the Relationship Between Land and Identity. Thank you to all of the artists who were part of this exhibit and to our audiences in Anchorage and Homer!

I am happy we premiered in my home-land.
I am happy my grandma was at opening night.
I am happy we performed for the gutsy, deep-rooted audiences who came to see us and that the man who I thought was not enjoying the show brought his granddaughter back to see it the following night.
I am humbled by the listening eyes I saw and the new stories told to me.
I am excited about the strength of the Native artists in Alaska.
I am honored that the land welcomed me back.

Next up for the Thank-you Bar:
We next perform The Thank-you Bar at the New Genre Festival in Tulsa, Oklahoma March 5 & 6, 2010, along with friends Mondo Bizarro and Kristina Wong! Come to Tulsa!

Exciting news!!
Catalyst was recently awarded a touring grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts to help support the 2010 - 2011 touring season of The Thank-you Bar! I am working on setting up the tours now, so if you are interested in having The Thank-you Bar and its related activities come to your community/city/theater please contact me NOW as deadlines are approaching.

A new show opens THIS MONTH
This month Terrible Things premieres at PS 122 in New York City. Terrible Things is a collaboration between Pearldamour and Catalyst's Emily Johnson, performed by Katie Pearl, Emily Johnson, Karen Sherman, Morgan Thorson, Adrian Czmielewski and Rudy de la Cruz. Also look for Terrible Things at the COIL Festival at PS 122 in January, 2010.

Quyana, everyone.
Emily J.

october 2009

Catalyst premieres The Thank-you Bar at Out North, in Anchorage, Alaska October 8 – 11, 2009, along with the accompanying art exhibit THIS IS DISPLACEMENT: Native Artists Consider the Relationship Between Land & Identity (co-curated with Carolyn Anderson) and concerts by BLACKFISH. See our upcoming shows page for more information!

We then tour down to Homer, Alaska for shows October 16 – 18 at Bunnell St. Arts Center.

In December, Terrible Things (created with Lisa D'Amour and Katie Pearl) premieres at PS122 in NYC. Terrible Things is performed by Katie Pearl, along with Emily Johnson, Karen Sherman, and Morgan Thorson.

Watch for our 2010/11 tour of The Thank-you Bar... dates and locations coming soon!

Thanks,
Emily

december 2008

2009 holds many exciting projects...

THE THANK-YOU BAR, which is a new solo I am working on with composers James Everest and Joel Pickard will have its pre-premiere at Franconia Sculpture Park (MN) in September, 2009 and then its official world premiere at OutNorth Contemporary Art House (Anchorage, AK) in October, 2009.

ADY, a play written by Rhianna Yazzie, with scene design by Carolyn Anderson and choreography by me will open in Minneapolis at Pangea World Theater in November, 2009.

And TERRIBLE THINGS, an amazing new project by Lisa D'Amour, Katie Pearl, and myself will open for a two-week run at PS 122 in NYC in December, 2009.

In addition, I am thrilled to be a 2009 Maggie Allesee National Center For Choreography fellow. My time spent at MANCC will include roving performances with the local community, rehearsals for the THE THANK-YOU BAR, and loads of research at the Oral History Library.

I am truly honored to work with so many amazing, inspiring, and incredibly talented collaborators in the coming months. Please check back for updates and come see some shows!

-Emily Johnson
Director, Catalyst

december 2007

2007 is almost to a close and I could list the many performances Catalyst had throughout the year, and give you a heads up on what is to come, and this would probably be the smart thing to do....but, I am not in such a directorial, strategizing mood (I often am not) - and I looked up from my computer and I saw this poem and it seems more important to share than any news I have at the moment.

Who could ever tire of this heart-stopping transition, of this breakthrough shift between seeing and knowing you see, between being and knowing you be? It drives you to a life of concentration, it does, in which effort draws you down so very deep that when you surface you twist up exhilarated with a yelp and a gasp.

Who could ever tire of this radiant transition, this surfacing to awareness and this deliberate plunging to oblivion - the theater curtain rising and falling? Who could tire of it when the sum of those moments at the edge - the conscious life we so dread losing - is all we have, the gift at the moment of opening it

-- Annie Dillard, An American Childhood

january 2007

Catalyst enjoyed a fine 2006 with performances at the Rogue Buddha Art Gallery in Minneapolis (thank you RBG,) at Dance Theater Workshop in New York City, on the banks of the Missouri River in South Dakota, on a farm in Nebraska, along 35W in Iowa and as part of KICK! in Montreal, Quebec.

"Capture!," the dance-film series Catalyst and Firetrunk produce at the Bryant Lake Bowl in Minneapolis continued with 5 screenings of experimental dance films from around the world.

And, our work was featured in MentalContagion, the Star Tribune and in the November issue of Dance Magazine.

For our next adventure we go to Austin, Texas where we are bring presented by Dance Umbrella with shows at the soon to be demolished site of Gallery Lombardi(January 25-28 @ 8pm , 910 W. 3rd St., Austin TX, www.danceumbrella.com.)

Also in January - Dance Theater Workshop is screening our film Wingspan 5'2" in their video dance series Captured. The film screens the entire month whenever DTW is open.

If you're in Minneapolis, look for the second installment of the experimental dance series, Windfarm at the Rogue Buddha Art Gallery, with special guests in February, March and April.

And - if you're anywhere near Chicago, you're going to want to be at Links Hall every weekend in March as Tramp moves the work of 5 independent choreographing entities (Catalyst, Hijack, Karen Sherman, Morgan Thorson and Laurie Van Wieren)from Minneapolis to Chicago for a month filled with performances, workshops,receptions, post show discussions, informal gatherings of dance professionals and a symposium. Links will post the info soon at www.linkshall.org.

Here's to a happy and healthy 2007...
Emily Johnson
Director, Catalyst

summer 2006

June brings the entire Catalyst dance company to the eastern coast of the U.S.A.; we’re performing in New York City for the first time: Heat and Life at Dance Theater Workshop June 28- July 1. We’re cooperating with New York’s “Citizens Campaign for the Environment,” holding post show discussions and conversations on the subject of global warming. They’re a great organization that has really helped us get the word out about the show. Find out more info on them at www.cce.org.

For a recent interview about this show see Mental Contagion.

To hear a recent podcast interview go to Great Dance.

And, of course, to buy tickets go to www.dtw.org!!

While in New York, JG Everest - the composer and musician (who also performs with us in Heat and Life) will play a solo show at Tonic with Berlin based “electro-pop-princess” Barbara Morgenstern. It’s going to be a very cool show. Check out the details and listen to samples at:
www.tonicnyc.com
www.barbarmorgenstern.de
www.jgeverest.com

This fall, Catalyst will perform Heat and Life on a farm in Nebraska and in public spaces in South Dakota and Iowa - all part of our goal of bringing Heat and Life to every state in the U.S.A. While on this massive 50-State-Tour we donate to www.gocarbonzero.com - our way of trying to off-set the carbon emissions created for our flights and driving. Try it (or, of course, try driving less!).

New work is on the horizon as well, as we continue to work on “Windfarm.” Windfarm is our version of the future... complete with stilt walking. Look for it in 2007.

Capture! the dance series produced by Catalyst at the Bryant Lake Bowl in MInneapolis continues with some exciting fall programming including work by Julyen Hamilton. We’re always on the search for new dance films, you can send them (with a SASE if you want it returned) throughout the year (see the Capture! page of our website).

Thanks for your time. Come see some dancing.

Emily Johnson
Director, Catalyst

january 2006

Happy New Year!

Welcome to our newly redesigned website. I've never tried this 'news forum' before, but plan to update it monthly - so check back often.

I'm starting out the new year with an intensive travel schedule, heading to Amsterdam to study with Julyen Hamilton, Brussels to visit the P.A.R.T.S studios, and Berlin - mostly to check out the scene. I hope to return to Minneapolis invigorated and inspired, ready for 2006.

2005 was, in large part, spent in fundraising and administrative mode as I am working to move Catalyst's dance piece "Heat and Life" to all 50 states in the U.S. "Heat and Life" is a work about global warming and this 50-State-Tour will cover enough ground to define the U.S. as a site where art-based work can be seen and be an impetus for change. That, at least - is my hope.

We are on our way toward the 50-state goal with performances scheduled in New York at Dance Theater Workshop June 28-July 1 and Links Hall (Chicago) March 2007. Rogue performances will also happen in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana this year, bringing our state count up to 8.

February in Minneapolis brings Catalyst to the highly hip Rogue Buddha art gallery with 3 performances in a series called "windfarm." I'm excited to bring some new work to this space, the first show includes longtime Catalyst dancers Melissa Kennedy, Vanessa Voskuil, Natasha Hassett and joining us for the first time - dancer Allison Lorenzen and violinist Jess Hayssen. I'm hoping to get a tattoo artist involved in this show, but am not sure I quite have the guts to be the one tattooed.

I wish you the best in 2006. May we all work for peace.
-Emily Johnson
Director, Catalyst