The National Center For Choreography-Akron Hosts Free Inside The Dancer's Studio Event

On August 14, the National Center for Choreography-Akron (NCCAkron) will present Inside the Dancer's Studio: Live with Ryan K. Johnson, a free public event at the Lincoln Theatre in Columbus, OH. Johnson is a 2024 Guggenheim Fellow and the Artistic Director of SOLE Defined. His work, ZAZ: The Big Easy, will premiere at the Wexner Center for the Arts as the season opener from September 4-7, 2025.

This engaging artist talk will spotlight choreographer Ryan K. Johnson, the Executive Artistic Director of SOLE Defined, a Washington, DC-based company putting an exciting twist on percussive dance. Advancing the genres of tap, body percussion, and sand dance with innovative uses of technology, SOLE Defined pushes the boundaries of rhythm and movement.

NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke, will lead a conversation with Johnson as he culminates his NCCAkron residency in Columbus, where he will create ZAZ: The Big Easy. They will explore his craft, creative process, artistic journey, and resilience in the dance world.

RSVP: www.nccakron.org/event-details/itds-live-ryankjohnson

Bolingbroke remarked, "Heading into its seventh season, Inside the Dancer's Studio has become NCCAkron's platform for archiving and documenting the voices and experiences of the artists we collaborate with. It also serves as an advocacy tool for dance and the creative process as vital elements of our cultural fabric. I'm thrilled to be conducting our first on-the-road, in-person interview with Ryan Johnson at the historic Lincoln Theatre."

Inside the Dancer's Studio: Live is an in-person counterpart to NCCAkron's podcast series of the same name. Inside the Dancer's Studio episodes bring listeners into the process of creating dance. Through interviews with choreographers from across the United States, Inside the Dancer's Studio dissolves the mystique of dance-making into engaging fun and deeply human conversation. The presentation of SOLE Defined was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and the Mellon Foundation.

This session of Inside the Dancer's Studio: Live is presented in partnership with the Lincoln Theatre Dance Initiative, which honors the theatre's rich legacy by creating inclusive opportunities for dancers at all levels, ensuring everyone can move or be moved.

Inside the Dancer's Studio is supported by NCCAkron, the Knight Foundation, the GAR Foundation, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Akron Community Foundation.

Ryan K. Johnson, MFA (Columbus, OH), is the first body percussionist awarded a Guggenheim Choreography Fellowship (2024) and the Executive Artistic Director of SOLE Defined Percussive Dance Company. He is an artist-scholar dedicated to exploring and promoting African Diasporic Percussive Dance. Johnson employs these physical practices, infused with immersive sound and media technologies, as a creative method to archive Black Americans' oral and documented histories. He cultivates performances that provoke, inspire, and ignite solution-oriented dialogue, reflection, and action among audiences, all with an ethic of care for the communities connected to these historical moments. Johnson's commitment to developing resource-driven, innovative programming is evident in his latest work, ZAZ: The Big Easy, a 2023 New England Foundation of Arts National Dance Project awardee. This performative archive addresses the oral and documented histories of Hurricane Katrina survivors and their realities. Johnson was the first post-MFA scholar at The Ohio State University Department of Dance.

His performance credits include performing with Gregory Hines and Marvin Hamlisch with The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, a featured artist in Ayodele Casel's Diary of a Tap Dancer v.6, and most recently, a featured rhythmic performer in Musicá by Amazon studio. He contributed as a composer, choreographer, and onscreen talent for a BB&T Zelle commercial and has performed in shows such as Step Afrika!, STOMP, Cirque du Soleil, Broadway's After Midnight on NCL, Rose Rabbit Lie, and as a resident tap dancer with The Washington Ballet under the direction of Septime Webre. His company, SOLE Defined, has performed at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The Lincoln Center, and the Maui Cultural Arts Center, to name a few. He was awarded The John F. Kennedy Center's Social Impact Office Hours Residency in 2023, where he created The Pulse, which premiered at Jacob's Pillow. He received the 2021 Bakers Award, the 2012 Coppin State University Dance Legacy Award, the 2010 DC Metro Award for Outstanding Individual Performance, and the 2008, 2017, and 2020 Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award. soledefined.com