Holly Johnston was born in South Korea and has lived in the United States since her adoption at the age of four. Spending most of her life preoccupied with physical play, she is now the artistic director of Holly Johnston | LEDGES AND BONES [LAB]. LAB is a collection of contemporary dance artists collaborating to create original choreography through a rigorous process of improvisation, experimentation and repetition. Johnston was selected by Dance Magazine as one of their " 25 to Watch" in 2007 for her "fearless and fluid" (Dance Magazine) approach to choreography. She is a performer, choreographer and movement educator holding a BA in Dance from Loyola Marymount University. She emerges from a career as a dancer using her passionate performance style and her relentless drive for movement invention to create work as an independent choreographer alongside her company of dancers living and working in both Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Johnston's choreography has been described by critics as "stunning..."(-NYTheatre), "hard-driving, hyperphysical"(-LA Times).... "lovely, pleasing, unpredictable, consistently interesting" (Dance Insider, NY) Her choreography has been presented in New York, Arizona and extensively throughout her home turf of Los Angeles and San Francisco, including The Ford Amphitheater, Highways Performance Space, Diavolo Performance Space, El Portal Theater, FOCUSfish , and ODC Theater. Earlier in her career she was a founding member of Tongue Contemporary Dance (AD: Stephanie Gilliland) and worked as a principle dancer, master teacher, and the company's rehearsal director from 1997-2005. She has received five Lester Horton Award nominations, for Outstanding Ensemble Performance and Outstanding Achievement in Costume Design. She has performed nationally and internationally and has toured to Malaysia/Singapore, New York, Las Vegas, Mexico, Vancouver BC, San Francisco, Detroit, and The Cayman Islands. She has performed in venues such as the Joyce SoHo, The Getty Center, Cultural Centre de' Tijuana, The RedCat, The Sharon Disney Lund Theater, City Center, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Carpenter Center and many others throughout the United States and abroad. She has performed in corporate industrials for companies such as Mercedes, Volkswagen, Union Pacific Railroad, The Ritz-Carlton and The Grammy's '06 & '07. Holly Johnston | LEDGES AND BONES are currently artist-in-residence at ODC Theater in San Francisco.
Maggie Allesee
