THE COMPANY

Lydia Johnson Dance has been consistently praised for Ms. Johnson's distinctive choreography, which uses components of ballet woven seamlessly into a contemporary dance vocabulary. The New York Times, The New Yorker, Backstage Magazine, Dance View Times, Critical Dance and Oberon’s Grove have critically acclaimed both the choreography and the expressive dancing that are integral to LJD. LJD's 2019 New York Season was chosen by the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts to be filmed by their videographer and is available for viewing at the library. LJD has been a Dodge Foundation Grantee for many years, and The New Jersey Council on the Arts Individual Artist program has awarded Ms. Johnson both a Finalist and a Fellowship award in recent years. Lydia Johnson Dance is also honored to have received a recent Maplewood Foundation Grant.

Capturing a sense of the depth and spirit of the human struggle, Johnson’s evocative work is noted for an underlying sense of drama, which resonates through the abstract qualities of her choreography. The New Yorker wrote: “Johnson is a craftsman and a poet; her works, which stress the ensemble and attend closely to the music, have an ebb and flow in addition to a strong emotional current. The basis of her technique is ballet, and her dancers are strong" and The New York Times commented " Dance that challenges the mind as well as the heart"

THE SCHOOL

Founded as an alternative to commercial dance education the LJD school offers a level of excellence that is rare outside of NYC. Our instructors are dancers and teaching artists who live and perform in NY. They all love teaching and are trained in LJD's creative curriculum. The progression of dance technique taught is carefully calibrated to be age appropriate and always based on correct alignment. Classes are woven with imaginative sequences, music and thoughtful discussions.

An LJD School dance experience is designed to spring from each child's creative center, while teaching essential structural skills. The curriculum includes a choreography component in every class. Choreography is an art and a skill and the curriculum at LJD was developed by Ms Johnson informed by her years of choreographing professionally. The structured and in-depth approach has been constantly revised and expanded in response to the interests and needs of our creative young dancers. Every season includes a performance of student choreography on stage each spring.

LYDIA JOHNSON

Lydia Johnson (Artistic Director, Choreographer)

Originally from Massachusetts Lydia Johnson trained in New York on scholarship at The Ailey School, with Finis Jung and members of Twyla Tharp’s company including Sara Rudner. After an injury, she began to choreograph, working with one dancer in a studio in the mostly vacant far West Village. Her choreography has been woven into her life as a mother as she juggled her artistry, income producing work and raising her 3 children. Her early pieces were shown in lofts and downtown studios. She founded a Choreographers’ Collective at the Cunningham studio (now the Graham studio) in order to help choreographers afford the cost of performances. In 1999, she incorporated LJD as a nonprofit, and has worked consistently creating dances that use emotional gestures, have a sense of the human story and are deeply linked to music. Her belief in choreography as an essential part of a creative dance education led to her founding the LJD School, where both technique and choreography are taught.

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