“Ms. Johnson is a tantalizingly distinctive modern-dance choreographer who does things like making dances from flowing phrases of awkward movement and slight discordancies.” Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times, 2005
Read what everyone is saying about Lydia Johnson Dance. Click on each link below to read the most recent press:
- “Lydia had an almost-full house and her dancers, who have looked so good in rehearsal, upped the level tonight with some really committed, passionate and — in the Dean Martin piece — witty dancing. Lydia's troupe boasts unique personalities who function smoothly as a team but who constantly remind us of their individuality.” Philip Gardner, Oberon's Grove
- In The Studio With Lydia Johnson Part One, Two and Three. There are many great company photos here!
- “A creator of modest, handsome, ballet-based dances, Johnson offers a slow-build première set to music by Henryk Górecki...” Read more from The New Yorker.
- Philip Gardner, Oberon's Grove “Lydia Johnson became overnight one of my favorite contemporary choreographers...her dancers took the floor and within seconds I knew I had found something I loved.”
- Backstage Magazine Mixing the weighty floor work and freewheeling torso actions of modern dance with the angular leg positions and ornamental port de bras of ballet, Lydia Johnson has created a tasty cocktail of dance vocabulary that looks markedly original and feels very naturally blended...
- Newark Star-Ledger The sign on the empty lot said: "Coming Soon: South Orange Performing Arts Center." Choreographer Lydia Johnson, who has lived in South Orange for 16 years, used to pass it on her way to the train station. Two or three times a week, the struggling dance maker...
- The New York Times The dances presented by Lydia Johnson and her company on Saturday night at the Theater of the Riverside Church stood out for their simplicity and quiet depth of abstracted feeling...
- The New York Times Ms. Johnson's choreographic voice is an individual one that often makes poetic art of movement that might otherwise be described as somewhat gawky, in dances with a distinctive simplicity and eloquent abstraction...
- The New York Times Lydia Johnson is a true original whose choreography repays close attention. The new and recent dances she presented on Friday night at the Dicapo Opera Theater were fascinating in the way they isolated and reworked components of classical ballet technique...
- The New York Times a tantalizingly distinctive modern-dance choreographer who does things like making dances from flowing phrases of awkward movement and slight discordancies...
- Backstage Magazine Though grounded in balletic lines, Johnson's movement vocabulary luxuriates in the stretching of body parts and the flow from one deliberately sculpted shape to the next. Her choreography is unhurried, sensual, full of feeling, and even in its perkier moments, retains a sense of peaceful pacing...
- The New Yorker In a dramatic ensemble piece set to Hindemith, duetting couples interlock with machine precision; the women move with balletic grace, and the men tenderly cradle their partners’ heads...
- Attitude Magazine Lydia Johnson says she founded her company in 1999, after "mothering her 3 children full-time." Her 2006 New York Season at the Ailey Citicorp Theater reflects her maternal experience...
- Press Quotes on Early Work
Still photographs throughout the site by Julie Lemberger (© Julie Lemberger, 2004–2009) and Kokyat (© Kokyat, 2009), as noted.
All photos on this page by Julie Lemberger.
