Formerly soloist with NYC’s Eleo Pomare Dance Company and Juilliard graduate, Carole Y. Johnson has pioneered dance projects in the USA and Australia. She established NYC’s Dancemobile; was founder of dance magazine, FEET; and initiated through M.O.D.E. (Modern Organization for Dance Evolvement) the First National Congress of Blacks in Dance (1973) at Indiana University. 

Ms. Johnson founded NAISDA Dance College (National Aboriginal/Islander Skills Development Association) and Bangarra Dance Theatre and is responsible for establishing contemporary dance among Australia’s Indigenous peoples and beginning processes that fuse contemporary dance with Aboriginal traditional dance. Ms. Johnson received an Australia Council Fellowship to collate historical material for writing about the development of Australian Indigenous dance as performance art. She was installed into the Australian Dance Awards’ Hall of Fame in 1999, received an Australia Council Fellowship in 2001, and was awarded the Centenary Medal in recognition of service to Australian society and the Indigenous community through dance in 2003.

Carole Johnson’s visit to the USA from Australia to Share Dance Knowledge is supported by the New South Wales State Government through Create NSW and by NAISDA Dance College.

This program is part of the Black Lives Have Always Mattered public program series at the Blockson Collection, which is made possible through the support of the PEW Center for Arts & Heritage grant.

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