Emily Johnson / Catalyst makes dances and large-scale performance gatherings that insist on thrivance, radical reworlding, and just futures. Based in Mannahatta in Lenapehoking, Catalyst works in deep relationship with a community of collaborators and organizes its work across four branches: the Branch of Making, the Branch of Action, the Branch of Scholarship, and the Branch of Knowledge. Anti-colonial and abolitionist in all capacities, Catalyst is committed to on-the-ground water and land protection, consistent decolonization work, and the building of sovereign, liberated futures for human and more than human kin. We work to pay respect to Lenape homeland, people and ancestors past, present and future by organizing with communities from the Lenape diaspora to build pathways for Lenapeyok return. Emily Johnson (she, her); tribal affiliation: Yup’ik Nation Director, Emily Johnson / Catalyst Emily Johnson [EH-muh-lee JOHN-sun] is an artist who makes body-based work. Emily belongs to the Yup’ik Nation, is a land and water protector and an organizer for justice, sovereignty and well-being. A Bessie Award-winning choreographer, Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award, Emily is based in Lenapehoking/NYC and Haudenosaunee lands. Since 1998, Emily’s large-scale performance gatherings insist thrivance, radical reworlding, and just futures.
