Ariyan Johnson

Ariyan Johnson (Air-re-yawn / she, her, hers), a native New Yorker, is an actor, choreographer, filmmaker, dancer, and educator whose work embodies the intersections of African diasporic embodiment, spirituality, and activism. A graduate of the “Fame” LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, she holds a B.A. in speech pathology and audiology from Lehman College and an M.A. in applied theatre from CUNY School of Professional Studies. As a full-scholarship trainee, she studied at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Martha Graham Center for Contemporary Dance, 92nd Street Y Harkness Ballet, and the Chautauqua School of Dance.

Johnson is widely recognized as a hip-hop dance pioneer, a liturgical dance forerunner, and a critically recognized actress. She was nominated for Best Lead Actress at the Independent Spirit Awards for her role in Just Another Girl on the I.R.T., the first female hip-hop coming-of-age story, which also received the Sundance Special Jury Prize. Her work in the film was celebrated at the Museum of the City of New York’s centennial exhibition, You Are Here, and the UCLA Film & Television Archive and Turner Classic Movies screening at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Some other credits include voice-over work in cartoons and radio, commercials, several plays, movies, and television, including Law and Order, JAG, The General’s Daughter, Bulworth, The Steve Harvey Show (series regular), and MTV’s You Wrote It, You Watch It (series regular). As a director, her films Triggered and Spiritual Cyphers: Hip Hop and the Church have received national and international awards.

In 1991, Johnson founded Degrees In Movement Arranged By Ariyan (D.I.M.A.B.A.), a company using African American storytelling to educate, spiritually uplift, and build community. Through D.I.M.A.B.A., she has created choreography for artists such as Chaka Khan and Ya Kid K (Technotronic), as well as large-scale productions including the Resurrection Service at the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles, which was favorably reviewed by The New York Times. Johnson has also served as founding director of Dance Ministries at Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church in Brooklyn and artistic director of Faithful Dance Company at Faithful Central Bible Church in Inglewood, where she taught free community classes, led social justice initiatives, and developed interactive performances.

As a part of the pioneering collective of hip hop and house dance in the 1980s and ‘90s, she participated in cultivating the culture in New York City clubs such as Nell’s, the Tunnel, the Shelter, and the World, and went on to dance or choreograph on stages, tours, awards shows, and music videos for Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey, LL Cool J, Salt-N-Pepa, SWV, Keith Sweat, Prince Markie Dee, Ms. Melodie, Crystal Waters, Kwame, and many others. She was a featured member of Abdel Salaam’s Forces of Nature Dance Theatre, working among such legends as Chuck Davis. In Ronn Pratt’s Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance Company, she began her community work exploring jazz-based dances of protest with Eleo Pomare’s Dancemobile in New York.

Johnson’s research focuses within the intersection of “un-invisibilizing” African Diasporic Female Embodiment, Spirituality surrounding the Black Church Movement Aesthetics, exploring how movement, activism, gender, and purpose interchange within identity, where she has presented at more than 20 conferences worldwide. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2022–23 CUNY Dance Initiative, a 2022–23 Hellman Fellowship, the 2021 Institute for 21st Century Creativity grand prize, and three-time Artist-in-Residence awards from the Los Angeles County Department of Cultural Affairs. Her publications appear in Global Hip Hop Studies Journal, Hip Hop Dance Almanac, Routledge’s Dance in U.S. Popular Culture, and The Intellect Handbook of Dance Education Research.

She is currently working on her next film, Looking For Revelations, and teaches jazz and hip hop in the Department of Dance at UC Irvine.

More at: www.ariyanjohnson.com