"I want to be on the land my ancestors dug into, pulled from, rose up from - and fell into. I want to be on this land, listening, and I also want to let the land be."
A new dance performance centered on movement, story, and sound housed within a light/sound installation of hand-made, functional fish lanterns. Niicugni equates the land we live on with the cells that comprise our bodies and calls upon audiences to remember that land is alive with ancestry, memory, and possibility, and that our bodies also hold these things.
Created and performed by Emily Johnson with Aretha Aoki. Sound composed and performed by multi-instrumentalist James Everest and violinist/electronic musician Bethany Lacktorin. Lighting design by Heidi Eckwall.
"...simultaneously vulnerable and commanding, mythical and wry."- Dance Magazine
Making a Fish Skin Lantern
Vermont Performance Lab Artist, January 2011 Residency
Highlights from our Residency at Vermont Performance Lab
Niicugni (Listen), Faces
Salmon Brings Us Together
Writing about making fish-skin lanterns at Vermont Performance Lab
This has been happening my whole life. Salmon brings me to harvest with
my family, brings me across Kachemak Bay in Alaska to learn fish-skin
sewing from Audrey Armstrong, brings me to awe as I watch them swim upstream, brings people to my table again and again, and brings me here, to Vermont Performance Lab. Of course, in this case, we had to arrange for the wild salmon to be here.
There used to be a healthy Atlantic Salmon population in the Connecticut River, all through Vermont. Wild, of
course (before the designation "wild" was needed), but in 1798, a dam
built on the lower end of the Connecticut River blocked the migration
path and decimated the salmon. Today, in conversation with a biologist
at Vermont Fish and Wildlife,
I learned that there is still a small - very small - population of wild
Atlantic salmon here. They are borne from wild, natural reproduction.
In fact, some swam up the river, right past where I am now, in
Brattleboro, this year. The population has to be supported now by the
Connecticut River Program, a hatchery program, but out of 6 million fry
stocked in the river, less than 100 per year have been coming back (51
last year)! It's pollution, dams, and something in the ocean that is
causing the massive decrease in Atlantic salmon survival. Obviously,
Atlantic salmon are protected in the Connecticut River and should have
been protected long before we got to this point. For our fish-skin
lantern making project this week we could have gone fishing for
landlocked salmon in Lake Champlain and Lake Memphremagog, but then we
would have had to rely on our fishing prowess. And, we would have had to
get a lot more fish since landlocked salmon are smaller. So, we ordered
our big, wild salmon from a fishmonger.
The salmon have met me here and we are about to begin. Judy Dow is
here too, a master basket-maker. We met for the first time in person in
the hotel lobby and for me, it was like meeting an old friend. Immediate
comfort, immediate conversation about things important to our lives.
She is someone who like me, makes things. And I think we are both
dedicated to actively remembering and knowing where the things we make
come from. I think we both actively pursue the "why" in our making.
Though our answers may be different, it is the question that is
important.
Why am I making a dance that will be housed within an installation of hand made, functional fish-skin lanterns? Because as I walked along Bishop Beach in Homer, Alaska, the image of these lanterns flooded my mind. I had seen the exhibit Skin Sisters at Bunnell Street Gallery a year before. It was an exhibit of art work - sculpture, baskets,
jewelry - all made of fish skin. The show was dedicated to the artists'
teacher, Fran Reed.
It was amazing visual work. I wanted to learn. I met Audrey Armstrong
at that opening and her words in relation to fish-skin sewing, memory,
knowledge, and love stay with me. Being back in Homer absolutely
influenced the appearance of this strong image of fish-skin lanterns. I
imagined a stage full of them. And it made me start to learn how to make
this thing I imagined.
--Interlude -- at this moment I am receiving text after text from my collaborators - Aretha Aoki, Bethany Lacktorin, James Everest, Eric Beach -- they know Brattleboro, where I am at the moment, and know the
delicious menu of food and beer I am privy to as I write this. I am told
by them to say hi to Sara and Dave (aka Vermont Performance Lab), to have fun as I make things, and to win big at bingo...
The salmon entered my mind as I walked the beach in Homer, but of
course, they have been with me all along. From age 0 to high school the
salmon brought my entire extended family together, yearly. Cousins,
second cousins, third cousins (all cousins), aunts, uncles, and grandma
were joined by my parents, brothers, and me at the beach for a glorious
week of really hard work. I remember the waves making their extremely
regular and continuously mesmerizing sound as we went to sleep in the
tent each night. I remember rolling down dirt cliffs again and again
with my brothers and cousins and running through the woods, pretending I
was a deer. I remember beach-combing in the off hours with mom and
grandma, food cooked over the fire, and the constant hum of my adults in
motion, conversation, and work. The work! Yes, I remember the work.
First of all, as a child, you learn to bonk. Bonk the heads of the
salmon we catch. I know, it sounds horrible. And I admit, as an adult,
it is more difficult. But this is our food - for the entire year, for
the entire extended family. We need this fish and we are thankful for
them. We celebrate them and we want them to die quickly. These days,
when I see people land fish and let them flop in the sand, I am angry
and disappointed with how removed some humans are with other creatures
of this world.
As children, bonking meant that we were part of it - this important
and celebratory time for our family. We chose our rocks well and we were
always accompanied by a stronger adult who was ready to step in if
needed. We sat on the beach and watched the salmon swim into the nets.
We acknowledged each and every one. We watched our fathers and uncles
and older cousins go out in the boat to haul in the fish from the net so
it didn't get too heavy. When the tide went out, we all helped
disentangle the fish.
Totes of salmon were brought to grandma's house where in shifts, the
rest of the work began. Scaling (something else us kids could do),
cleaning, filleting, stripping, (work we graduated to due to the knives,
the fast pace, and the precision needed) and tying. Tying. At this
point, it is late in the night. No knives are necessary once we are
ready to tie, just mounds and mounds of strips of salmon and circles of
string. The only precision required is that the string be tied one inch
(or so) below the end and that strips of equal size be strung together.
Precision that us older kids could handle as the adults took a much
needed break.Perhaps I am exaggerating, or my memory fails me, but my cousin and I
(yes, 2 of us) would be on that fish cleaning hill tying strips till
the wee hours of the morning. Complaining (of course) that we were the
only ones working. I guess it didn't register to us that there was still
the brining, the drying, the hanging of rows and rows of strips in the
multi-story smokehouse. Not to mention the stoking of the fire - not too
hot, not too burned out - for the hours, hours, and days ahead. Still,
we felt justified. And perhaps that is key; every moment with these fish
is important. Our moments growing up, learning the skills necessary,
building relationships with each other and with the fish, prepares us
for a life of working with them and each other. My cousin and I got to
bond over our chore and when my mom or one of the other adults came out
to join us, we felt incredibly part of something.
We learn how to respect the rivers and ocean because that is where
the fish are. We learn how to treat them once they are caught, how to
protect them from sand and sun, how to prepare them and take care of
them all along the way. I haven't even gotten to the assembly line that
happens in the smokehouse once a certain amount of fish is partially
smoked and ready for canning and kippuring... but the rack of venison
with blackberry demi glace, root vegetable, and chevre & thyme crust
on my table at the Tap Room in Brattleboro is almost consumed and I am compelled to tell one more story about the table.
A few years ago, my collaborator and friend Karen Beaver and I had dinner together at my house. Karen is also from Alaska but
hadn't been back in years so I wanted to give her a little taste of
home. We had salmon for dinner and for dessert, my grandma's akutaq. We
shared stories of home (Alaska) and home (Minnesota and South Dakota)
and our lives and our work. We remembered things we thought we had
forgotten. And we kept commenting on how good the salmon (and salmon
berries) shared between us was. I am so grateful we had that food to
share. We have to fiercely protect and love our salmon. Salmon brings us
together.
the thank-you bar • 2010
THE THANK-YOU BAR is a new performance/installation of dance, live music, storytelling and visual image connecting ideas of displacement, longing, and language to history, pre-conceived notions, architecture, and igloo-myth.
Created and performed by choreographer Emily Johnson with composers/musicians James Everest and Joel Pickard. Featuring beadwork by celebrated artist Karen Beaver, costumes by Angie Vo and Kari Multz , lighting design by Heidi Eckwall and paper sculptures by Krista Kelley Walsh. Includes companion concerts by experimental music duo BLACKFISH (James Everest + Joel Pickard).
"I want to make work that looks at identity and cultural responsibility — that is beautiful and powerful — full of myth and truth at the same time," choreographer Emily Johnson explains in her mission statement. "I want to be grounded in my heritage, supported by my community, and giving back — always." Born in Alaska of Yup'ik descent and based in Minneapolis, Johnson has been creating site-specific dance installations in collaboration with visual artists and musicians since 1998, exploring ideas of home, identity, and the natural world through different modes of storytelling. Her latest multimedia performance piece is The Thank-you Bar, running at New York Live Arts from November 9 to 12. A collaboration with musicians James Everest and Joel Pickard of BLACKFISH, who will play a special set on the final night, the performance installation also includes beadwork by Karen Beaver and paper sculptures by Krista Kelley Walsh. The extremely eloquent and thoughtful Johnson carefully considered our questions for our latest twi-ny talk; she will also participate in a preshow chat on November 9 with NYLA artistic director Carla Peterson as well as a discussion on November 11 with dancer-choreographer Reggie Wilson following the 9:30 show.
twi-ny: In her Context Notes about The Thank-you Bar on the New York Live Arts blog, Biba Bell is taken by your voiceover "What is becoming more clear to me is what I'm missing," asking the questions "How many moments are passed, paused or pregnant with the sense of what is missed — something, someone, someplace? What do they sound like, smell like, and how do they feel?" What are some of the things you are missing, and how do they drive your artistic creation?
Emily Johnson: I said that — about the missing — because I am feeling years accumulate. What is absent is becoming an acute pain and it makes me feel old, most simply because of what has already gone by. I have missed my niece and nephew growing up because I was in Minneapolis, making dance, while they were in Alaska. I miss many, many mornings with my grandma — casual mornings of coffee, where we sit around, she doing crosswords until a story comes out. If I'm not around, I simply miss the story and I miss the time. And this creates the yearning — or heightens it, at the very least. I long for these stories. I long for the time with my elders, the time with my niece and nephew and rest of my family. And it points to what might not be: How much longer can I wait to learn the Yup'ik language, helped along by my grandma — the only one in my family who speaks it? How much longer can my body make do without feeling the ground of Alaska beneath my feet on a regular, day in and day out basis? What disservice do I do my life when I let these things pass me by?
Eventually, time runs out. Every summer I go home for the salmon run and I am trying to imprint the process of putting the salmon up (cleaning, smoking, kippuring, freezing . . .) into my brain so that when it comes my time to take charge of making it happen I will be able to do so. These are some of the things I am missing, and the absence and the longing are so real that it creates a new version of life. Biba's questions about sounds, smell, feel — this is exactly what drives me. As I created The Thank-you Bar, a work very much about missing home/land, I thought about how our bodies miss, how our minds remember — not a scientific how, but a how related to our own perceptions of our experiences. When a thread of a Crystal Gayle song comes on, I am brought back to the jukebox at my grandma's bar; when I think about the mountains near my Alaskan home, my chest aches and for some reason it also feels like I am diving into a very cold lake, exhilarating my being. And the thoughts about where and when also make me think of the future.
When I make dances, I try to imagine the future. I get curious about what images, reactions, or stories the audience might remember four days after seeing a performance. This leads me to structure dances with a focused attention on the smallest of details: what the audience might walk on as they enter the space, what they might smell during a particular story. . . . It makes me consider what I can leave out of the equation so as to let conjecture and interpretation have a role in the room.
twi-ny: The Thank-you Bar and its companion exhibit, "This Is Displacement," explore the idea of home. You were born in Alaska, you're based in Minneapolis, and you're now presenting the New York premiere of a work that has previously been performed in Oklahoma, Houston, and other locations. Where is home for you?
Emily Johnson: The most specific, locating answer is that I have two homes: one in Minneapolis, the other in Alaska. I love both places, and the home in Minneapolis is actually more concrete: it has my stuff in it. The home in Alaska feels expansive and like it goes on for thousands of years, probably because it doesn't actually have any walls. I don't have a living space in Alaska, but it's where I come from and where I continually return to.
To be honest, I try to build another home for myself and audiences in The Thank-you Bar. Does this mean I am searching? Does this mean I believe we can adapt to any longing, and dislocation? I build the home by trying to bring attention to the building we are in and the people who are gathered in the room. I try to imagine the walls gone; I try to imagine what was here before the current incarnation. I want the feeling of "home" to lead to a kind of intimacy so that people feel comfortable, responsible even, for it. I think we tend to look at things as static when, in reality, our bodies and places house past, present, and future, at once. It's anything but static and it's kind of exciting to tap into.
twi-ny: You collaborated with James Everest and Joel Pickard of BLACKFISH on The Thank-you Bar, and the duo will be playing a special concert on November 12. What is it about their music that draws you to them and made you want to work with them?
Emily Johnson: BLACKFISH music is dramatically mind altering for me. When James [Everest], Joel [Pickard], and I started work, part of our process was to improvise together in a room, daily. We've continued that process, as much as we can when we tour, and out of it James and Joel created their project, BLACKFISH. As BLACKFISH, they perform improvised concerts in conjunction with our tours. I love their concerts — and I love that they've developed this entire project out of The Thank-you Bar. On the twelfth, they're releasing a gorgeous limited edition, letter-pressed, eight-CD collection of some of the concerts they've recorded over the past two years. John Scott heard their concert in Vermont this summer and has since worked with them for music for his new work. He very endearingly asked my permission first.
In The Thank-you Bar, they don't play as BLACKFISH; they play as James and Joel. What I most appreciate about them is their specificity and dedication to improvisation. The music they composed for The Thank-you Bar is set; it came from improvisations, from bouts of memory and discussions of the jukebox I mentioned (that at my grandma's was filled with classic country). The sound of dislocation and rerouting to find home is what they built for The Thank-you Bar. It makes me want to work with them again and again.
One day, early in the process, I was rehearsing in a separate studio. I came down and they told me to sit on the floor. They proceeded to play music that layered inch by inch and sound by sound, as they appeared and disappeared, until a reverberating chorus echoed off the walls. I remember slapping the floor and exclaiming/laughing at the genius of it. Them: missing. Music: building. We've kept it. They basically choreographed the beginning of the dance.
Halfway through the video by Emily Johnson that documents her process and concerns while making the multi-media performance piece The Thank-you Bar, the pace of its narration rapidly shifts. It transitions from a discussion of displacement to her interests in storytelling, specifically oral traditions as they enable a sense of belonging. This shift is abruptly demonstrated through an edit in the video, a sharp pause between images. After a moment her contemplative voice enters and says, "What is becoming more clear to me is what I'm missing."
Something about this utterance struck me, be it the rhythm of its delivery, the disembodied quality of the voiceover, or the quiet observing of an empty space within one's creative process. How many moments are passed, paused or pregnant with the sense of what is missed—something, someone, someplace? What do they sound like, smell like, and how do they feel? Then, from within this pause, there is the impulse to locate, and the creative engine begins its acceleration.
Johnson, an Alaskan native of Yup'ik descent, makes work that engages the geographic with a personal topography that weaves together cultural, affective and historical impulses. Architecture and landscape enacts sites of remembrance, where sensorial engagement can bring the traces of practices ingrained in these sites into an embodied and communal context. Performance provides a space to enact investigations in real time, bringing the audience into a fluid space of action, empathy and participation.
Johnson struggles with displacement as a primary force driving her work: Alaska to Minneapolis, rural to urban, past to present. Could displacement be thought a primary condition of our contemporary world? Be it actual or virtual, issues of home(less)ness articulate a politics of the proper as it relates to the body, place, identity, community. In this sense, the ontological question of being-there is deferred… or multiplied into a situation of here, there and every/elsewhere. Displacement entails a perceptual split—bifocal, mutlivocal—juxtaposing spaces, times, stories or perspectives by asking them to relate and mingle despite threats of impasse. It implies a site of loss, while activating movements toward remembrance, retrieval, recognition.
Johnson's process articulates a movement towards negotiating what is missing, the homesickness that afflicts us when the spaces of our past, familial, ancestral, cultural and mythical have been razed, renovated, gentrified or (re)developed. But she also proposes an intervention into these challenging spaces of alterity so that they can be transformed into sites of familiarity, intimacy and home. Johnson's process implies a loosening of these spaces. Allowing for embodied memory to emerge; it's an act of communion. Walking through the homes of past lives, past selves, like Michel de Certeau's pedestrian speech-act, stories are performed as a simple act of translation.
At one point in this same video, Johnson interviews a professor of biological science during her residency at Florida State University. Describing the process of adaptation that animals in the wild undergo with respect environmental changes, urbanization or the human population he notes that within the novelty of transitioned space these animals will continue to do what they know how to do. A hawk for instance: "Instead of nesting in cliffs or in trees, they'll make their nest in skyscrapers and in gargoyles on rooftops." Forces of adaptation set these spaces in motion. What appears counter, incompatible or even impossible collides. The hawk swoops, glides, perches and sees its landscape through. This dwelling narrates continuity by enunciating a certain past-ness so that the present can be had. Such storytelling intervenes within these breaks, it does not reconcile but creates bridges. It attends to the cut of dislocation.
Featuring Katie Pearl, Morgan Thorson, Karen Sherman, Emily Johnson and two Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Players, Adrien Czmielewski and Rudy De La Cruz.
Science Tuesday meets Oklahoma angst as we flip P.S. 122 into a low-rent IMAX and get up close and in between molecules, quarks and memories. Have you ever wondered if all those lives you’ve imagined yourself living are actually happening in a parallel world(s)? Terrible Things takes audiences on a T-R-I-P inside the many lives of Katie Pearl and her action-figure literary mom. We want to give you an in-your-body out-of-body experience. We want to touch your quarks…
pamela • 2008
Created collaboratively by Jessica Cressey, Emily Johnson, Hannah Kramer.
Directed by Emily Johnson.
Pamela resembles a dance and conjures a woman. Cressey, Kramer, and Johnson resemble Pamela and conjure a dance. Who is Pamela and why is she performing for you? She's flaunting her attributes and hiding her flaws. What is Pamela? The mundane becomes ritual, ritual becomes spectacle. Can Pamela exist without you?
"the dark matter holding together the frippery of the visible universe..."
something more useful then / reaching for more hope than is possible • 2007
A walk in a park, a dance on a stage, a song sung, a shirt made, a boy born, and a mouse found, dead.
Performed by Emily Johnson & Nadine Sures (Montreal).
Music by JG Everest.
bird eye blue print • 2007
With Lisa D'Amour, Katie Pearl, and Krista Walsh
A site-specific performance imagined for a vacant office space in the World Financial Center. A mysterious woman known only as the Blue Dress Lady tours you through her habitat.
Presented in the Word of Mouth festival at the World Financial Center in New York, May 2007. Commissioned and presented by arts World Financial Center, which is sponsored by American Express, Merrill Lynch, Battery Park City Authority and Brookfield Properties with additional support from the New York Mercantile Exchange.
love letter to minn-nnea-polis • 2007
An obvious and ironic ode to home. We sing the entire time we dance. Here's one verse:
"I've been here a lo-ng time
and I want to go ho-me
And here in the Mid West
We're so close to everything
And we're so close to nothing, nothing at all"
one for resolve/sarah • 2007
This is a dance-story of life, love, work, commitment, natural forces, adversity, fields, and death. Sarah acts as host and dancer. When she performed this solo for her family in Nebraska she used a fischer-price car ramp that her and her cousins used to play with while at the farm. And she wore a cowboy hat. When she performed this solo at the Rogue Buddha Art Gallery in Minneapolis she wore some of her old, sequined costumes from the studio dance days. And she walked on stilts. Original music by Beseppy.
one for resolve/emily • 2006
Exhaustion meets resolve meets exhaustion.
A move from aiming to please to stating the obvious.
A move from living to dying.
A story follows and precedes death.
This dance, in its entirety is 25 minutes long.
Music by JG Everest & Roma Di Luna.
f**k nature • 2006
“...delicately cupped hands that cradled an invisible bird, scraping movements that recalled the hoof pawing of caribou, dynamic industrial dancing....” - Star Tribune
A stark piece calling for a sane approach to land management; it recalls nature, death and the permanence of drilling. In the world premiere Bethany Lacktorin (www.beseppy.com) was tattooed on the left arm. She also played violin with Jessica Hayssen as Melissa Kennedy, Vanessa Voskuil, Natasha Hassett, and Allison Lorenzen danced. See more photos
mass • 2006
Improvised rules. Dancers and non-dancers mix in a realm of everyday action - juxtaposed by a choreographed finish. Audience members receive a specific aural experience; they wear headphones and pass 20 portable CD players, each playing different music selections, amongst themselves at scheduled intervals. Some audience members correlate their experience of interdependence and cooperation with that of the performers.
wingspan 5'2"
Time and repetition amid mountaintops, lakes, intersections, and a burned out forest. Requiring only a little trespassing, Wingspan 5'2'' celebrates the physicality and resolve required to remain engaged in the ever-changing landscapes of our personal histories.
WINGSPAN 5'2" / 2006
Directed and Choreographed by Emily Johnson
Cinematography by Emily Johnson, James Everest, and Randy Kramer
Edited by Randy Kramer
Performed by Natasha Hassett
Screenings:
Cinema Revolution Society's Minnesota Dance Film Festival (2010)
Chicago Cultural Center's Dance for the Camera Festival (2008)
Macalester College's Rolling Footage Film Festival (2007) Earth Fusion Festival, Minneapolis (2007)
Links Hall, Chicago (2007)
Dance Theater Workshop's Captured Video-Dance Series (2007)
The Walker Art Center's Women with Vision Film Series (2006) capture! Dance Film Series, Minneapolis (2006)
heat and life 2004
"It will challenge, if not completely transform, your understanding of dance as an art form.”- Mpls. St. Paul Magazine
"Heat and Life" depicts a frenetic world fueled by anxiety, paranoia and fear—a world Catalyst uses to explore connections between global warming, overpopulation, degradation of natural & urban environments, insatiable greed and how we contribute and respond to these human-made disasters. Negotiating rough terrain, each other and the edginess of having nothing to lose, seven dancers aim to thrive in an ever-changing landscape. Using walkie-talkies, electrical cords, 80 pounds of sod, industrial flashlights, gas masks, helmets and a bicycle to adapt, the lines are blurred: Are they emergency workers or disaster survivors? Friends or foes? In this brutal world, it’s hard to pause to take a deep, clean breath.
Multi-instrumentalist composer JG Everest performs his original score live on stage, a hybrid of electronic, acoustic and site-specific found sounds. Randy Kramer’s stark video design enhances the sense of loss and disorientation with “grass so green it makes your eyes hurt” and Heidi Eckwall’s scrappy guerilla lighting sets mobile boundaries through which the dance unfolds.
"Heat and Life" was originally commissioned by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and is performed by Catalyst dancers Sarah Baumert, Jessica Cressey, Natasha Hassett, Melissa Kennedy, Susan Scalf, Andrea Zimmerman and musician JG Everest.
“...a blend of furious dance, haunting live music...”- Flavorpill
“uncompromising intensity... there is no release here - only energized, high-powered dancing - Gay City News
Heat and Life, excerpt
To read an interview with choreographer Emily Johnson and Mental Contagion go to www.mentalcontagion.com. To hear a podcast interview on Great Dance Blog go to www.greatdance.com. To hear an interview with Emily on Minnesota Public Radio go to www.mpr.org.
Originally commissioned by the Walker Art Center. Funded by the Jerome Foundation, Archibald Bush Foundation, The Moore Family Fund of the Minneapolis Foundation, The Puffin Foundation, the Elmer E. and Eleanor L. Andersen Foundation and private donations.
“Here is politics and a language to speak it.” - mnartists.org
Catalyst intends to bring Heat and Life to each of the 50 United States of America. This 50-State-Tour will cover enough literal ground to define the USA as a site where art-based work can be seen and be an impetus for change.
“We're led along a hero story, then suddenly uprooted by the consequences, made to face our responsibility in creating situations we need to be rescued from.” - mnartists.org
Catalyst has performed "Heat and Life" in Alaska, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York, Iowa, Nebraska, Florida, South Dakota, Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arizona, California, and Illinois.
This 50-State-Tour of Heat and Life aims to reach audiences both within and outside of the normal theatrical setting. The interworkings of movement, sound and video are adapted to fit the particulars of each location and audience. Appropriate venues include theaters, warehouses, parks, sidewalks, and expos.
“Like giant birds, the dancers slowly bow their heads, raise and lower their arms—or are they signaling through the flames?” - Dance Magazine
Catalyst works with environmental organizations such as Minnesotans for an Energy Efficient Economy, Citizens Campaign for the Environment, The Living Green Expo, and The Will Steger Foundation to facilitate understanding, cross-pollinate audiences, and present the idea that art can be an essential part of policy and be of social/political importance. These connections are made in post show discussions, Q&A sessions, workshops for environmental organizers/volunteers on how to reach and meet people through human interaction and art in addition to science, and distribution of environmental materials at shows. Catalyst also offsets the carbon put into the atmosphere due to touring "Heat and Life" by donating to Go-Carbon-Zero.org.
on the spit/sluice we are outlaws 2004
Emily Johnson’s 5th duet with Susan Scalf, On the Spit/Sluice confronts sham militarism in the face of real environmental danger.
give me a story, tell me you love me • 2003
Give Me a Story, Tell Me You Love Me demands vulnerability and resolve as susceptibility threatens security and deception replaces truth. A duet rigorously performed by Catalyst dancers Emily Johnson and Andrea Zimmerman with an original sound score composed by Lateduster.
close to giving up • 2003
“...lush and mysterious...the five dancers, dressed in white pantaloons and camisoles, are both awkward and elegant, coquettish and athletic...” - Star Tribune
Created with support from the Jerome Foundation. Incorporating a fine tuned sense of the tragic, an unscrupulous determination, and a reverence for the rowdy. Rhoda Reighard, piano diva and fanciful French singer graces the stage with Catalyst in this company ensemble piece.
never meant to hurt • 2003
“...a rigorous diet of tension and release, grasping and flinging away...The boldness of their moves enhance the work’s mystery.”- Star Tribune
An irreverent look at love lost and love gained in an offbeat, overdressed, take your breath away, and “don’t ever forget me” kind of way.
fair luck • 2002
“...polished, concise movements are like bones assembled to show the skeleton of an emotionally charged relationship.” - Star Tribune
Created with support from the Jerome Foundation. A taut and gestural duet calling into question the luck and fate that plays a role in who raises us and how those early influences guide or misguide our lives into and through adulthood.
plain old andrea, with a gun • 2002
“...a fascinating, ritualistic look at the cultural perils that arise from the refusal to communicate....And with its strong composition and inventive choreography, “Plain Old Andrea” signals a fresh, vital presence on the Twin Cities dance scene.” - Star Tribune
Commissioned in part by the Walker Art Center and Southern Theater with funds provided by the Jerome Foundation. Exploring the temperamental states of pride and hate by demonstrating the vitality inherent in their varied experiences, 5 dancers’ individual stories become intertwined with entertainment and the actual recording of events. Original music composed and performed by Lateduster.
face control • 2001
Created with support from the Minnesota State Arts Board and Red Eye Theater. Performed by Emily Johnson and Susan Scalf who preserve dignity at all costs.
if i shut my eyes, you can't see me • 2001
“Rapid moves and gestures are like words composed into sentences...one gleans an intriguing dance narrative about focus and control.” - Star Tribune
Created with support from the Minnesota State Arts Board and Red Eye Theater. Illuminated under the glare of bare light bulbs, the audience gaze is drawn to a delicate moment: what is revealed when we think no one is looking?
power play • 2001
Set to a live recording of a high school girls basketball game, a "tongue-in-cheek" glimpse into fierce competition and the assertion of power.
i could quit if i wanted to • 2001
Created with support from 3 Legged Race. Pushing the boundaries of physically and emotionally capacity.
This has been happening my whole life. Salmon brings me to harvest with
my family, brings me across Kachemak Bay in Alaska to learn fish-skin
sewing from Audrey Armstrong, brings me to awe as I watch them swim upstream, brings people to my table again and again, and brings me here, to Vermont Performance Lab. Of course, in this case, we had to arrange for the wild salmon to be here.
Why am I making a dance that will be housed within an installation of hand made, functional fish-skin lanterns? Because as I walked along Bishop Beach in Homer, Alaska, the image of these lanterns flooded my mind. I had seen the exhibit Skin Sisters at Bunnell Street Gallery a year before. It was an exhibit of art work - sculpture, baskets,
jewelry - all made of fish skin. The show was dedicated to the artists'
teacher, Fran Reed.
It was amazing visual work. I wanted to learn. I met Audrey Armstrong
at that opening and her words in relation to fish-skin sewing, memory,
knowledge, and love stay with me. Being back in Homer absolutely
influenced the appearance of this strong image of fish-skin lanterns. I
imagined a stage full of them. And it made me start to learn how to make
this thing I imagined. 
As children, bonking meant that we were part of it - this important
and celebratory time for our family. We chose our rocks well and we were
always accompanied by a stronger adult who was ready to step in if
needed. We sat on the beach and watched the salmon swim into the nets.
We acknowledged each and every one. We watched our fathers and uncles
and older cousins go out in the boat to haul in the fish from the net so
it didn't get too heavy. When the tide went out, we all helped
disentangle the fish. 
A few years ago, my collaborator and friend Karen Beaver and I had dinner together at my house. Karen is also from Alaska but
hadn't been back in years so I wanted to give her a little taste of
home. We had salmon for dinner and for dessert, my grandma's akutaq. We
shared stories of home (Alaska) and home (Minnesota and South Dakota)
and our lives and our work. We remembered things we thought we had
forgotten. And we kept commenting on how good the salmon (and salmon
berries) shared between us was. I am so grateful we had that food to
share. We have to fiercely protect and love our salmon. Salmon brings us
together.
