Jill Johnson
Director of Dance at Harvard
Senior Lecturer, Department of Music
Harvard Dance Center
60 Garden Street, Cambridge
617-495-8683

Formerly on the faculties of Princeton, Barnard College at Columbia University, The New School University and New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts; and has taught regularly at The Juilliard School, Alvin Ailey, The Joffrey Ballet School New York, and Yale University, Jill Johnson is an honors graduate of Canada’s National Ballet School. She was a soloist dancer with the National Ballet of Canada and a principal dancer in choreographer William Forsythe’s company, Frankfurt Ballet, for ten years. For the past twelve years she has staged Forsythe’s work worldwide, including productions at Paris Opera Ballet, Norwegian National Ballet, Batsheva Dance Company in Israel, La Scala, the National Ballet of Canada, American Ballet Theater and Boston Ballet. Currently she is working with Mikhail Baryshnikov on a solo that William Forsythe is creating for Baryshnikov.

Johnson has also served as an adjunct faculty member at The Juilliard School, The Joffrey Ballet School, and Movement Invention Project where she has been Choreographer-In-Residence, and has taught regularly at Yale University, The Alvin Ailey School, and Ohio State University where she recently collaborated on the award-winning web-based project Synchronous Objects. Her recent Artist-In-Residency posts include Forsythe master workshops at The Baryshnikov Arts Center in 2009-10, with Morphoses dance company in September 2010, Jacksonville University’s MFA Dance Program in July 2010, and The New School University where she was commissioned to make an original work entitled 27 for 17 in May of 2009.

Johnson’s other recent choreographic commissions are Room/Room for NYU in spring 2009; As Yet Unnamed, for the Movement Invention Project Collective in New York City in July 2010; Folding Articulation for Princeton University, February, 2011; Waterline for Barnard College at Columbia University, April 2011; and Solo for Jeff at The Juilliard School, May 2011. The Copier, commissioned by Cedar Lake D ance C ompany, received honorable mention in Time Out New York’s Best in Dance in New York in 2009 and was hailed by Dance.com as a work that “breaks the ballet mold and integrates stellar technique with innovative elements.”

Johnson’s administrative and leadership experience includes directing the William Forsythe program at the Dance Apprenticeship Network Across Europe Program through the Palucca University in Dresden, Germany, as well as running her own freelance dance production company for eleven years. In addition, she has designed curricula and syllabi for dance programs and departments at institutions of higher education including New York University, Princeton University, Barnard College, The Ailey School, The New School University and The Juilliard School.