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Ariyan Johnson

Ariyan Johnson (Air-re-yawn / she, her, hers), a native New Yorker, is a graduate from the “Fame” La Guardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, where she majored in dance, she holds a B.A. in Speech Pathology and Audiology (Lehman College), and an M.A. in Applied Theatre (CUNY SPS). As a merit-based full scholarship student, she trained at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Martha Graham Center for Contemporary Dance, 92nd Street Y Harkness Ballet, and Chautauqua School of Dance. She embodies her purpose as a scholar, practitioner, award-winning filmmaker, choreographer, actress, hip hop dancing pioneering artist, hip hop culture cultivator, author, forerunner in liturgical dance, and dance historian. Johnson’s work is within the intersection of “Un-invisiblizing” African Diasporic Female Embodiment, Spirituality surrounding the Black Church Movement Aesthetics, and how movement, activism, and purpose interchange within identity. Published in The Global Hip Hop Studies Journal’s special issue on Breaking in the Olympics, the online Hip Hop Dance Almanac, the Routledge book Dance in US Popular Culture, and the first-of-its-kind Intellect Handbook of Dance Education Research with her chapter, Using Hip Hop Pedagogy to Create Equitable Dance Spaces. As a forerunner of liturgical dance, she’s the Founding Director of Dance Ministries at Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York, and for ten years as Artistic Director of Faithful Dance Company at Faithful Central Bible Church in Inglewood, California. It was there she taught free community classes, deaf participants, organized social justice initiatives, and created interactive performances.

In 1991 she created, Degrees In Movement Arranged By Ariyan (D.I.M.A.B.A.) to educate, spiritually uplift, and build community using a multi-artistic lens through an African American storytelling experience. The company is a community partner with Los Angeles United School District and has an intergenerational focus with an applied theatre approach to movement and activism, which is centered around spirituality in various forms of self-discovery, social justice, and (self) reflection, with the objective towards relationship building within community. 

Through D.I.M.A.B.A. creative direction and choreography was developed for many artists like Grammy award-winning artist Chaka Khan and Hip-House pioneer Ya Kid K (Technotronics). The company has provided multi-disciplinary production collaborations, one of which was the Resurrection Service for eight years, (favorably reviewed by the New York Times) at the 18,000-seated Great Western Forum in Los Angeles. Other productions involved an original dance ministry-driven play that fused poetry, live song, hip-hop, dance, and drama to depict a life of self-examination in Pure Gold which starred Dwana Smallwood, former Alvin Ailey Principal dancer, with subsequent runs of the production, starring Duane Lee Holland, former member of Rennie Harris Pure Movement. 

As a part of the pioneering collective of hip hop and house dance in the 1980s-90s, she participated in emerging the culture in N.Y.C. clubs like Nell’s, the Tunnel, the Shelter, and the World with club kid legends like Frank Thomas and Marjory Smarth. At a time when block parties had jams and movement was still a social dance of expression and community. She went on to dance and/or choreograph for a slew of artists on stage, on tour, on awards shows, and music videos like Queen Latifah, Mary J Blige, Mariah Carey, LL Cool J, Salt-N-Pepa, SWV, Keith Sweat, Prince Markie Dee (from The Fat Boys), Ms. Melodie, 2 in a Room, A.D.O.R., Kwame, Crystal Waters, Mass Order, and Urban Soul to name a few. Touring with fellow dancers, Cetra Dance, Kisha Richardson, Suncerae Clark, Raymond “Voo Doo Ray” Ultarte, and Ejoe Wilson,  to places like the Philippines, Japan, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Mexico. She was a featured member of Abdel Salaam’s Forces of Nature Dance Theatre working among such legends as Chuck Davis, Dyane Harvey, and Otis Sallid. In Ronn Pratt’s Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance Company, she worked with Shirley Rushing and Eleo Pomare and began her community work exploring jazz-based dances of protest with Eleo Pomare’s Dancemobile in New York. As a nominated Best Lead Actress from the Independent Spirit Awards for her work in the first female hip hop coming-of-age story Just Another Girl on the I.R. T., which won the Sundance Special Jury Prize, she represented one of the few female hip hop dancing duos depicted in a film. Her work in the film is celebrated in installations at the Museum of the City of New York’s centennial exhibition You Are Here, as well as the curated screenings at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles. Some other credits include voice-over work in cartoons, radio, and television campaigns; several plays; Law and Order; J.A.G.; The General’s Daughter with John Travolta; Bulworth with Warren Beatty and Halle Berry, where she portrayed a rapper influencing Hip Hop culture on the political landscape; a series regular on The Steve Harvey Show where she rapped with the Lady of Rage and received her first television choreography credit for the African dance class episode; and a series regular on the MTV show You Wrote It, You Watch It. As a director, she received international and national award recognition for her films Triggered and Spiritual Cyphers: Hip Hop and the Church. 

Johnson’s research has been presented at over 18 conferences, including the Collegium of Diaspora Dance Conferences at Duke University, International Association Dance Medicine and Science Conference, Dance Studies Association Conference, National Dance Educators Conferences, California Dance Educators Association Conferences, the European Hip Hop Studies Network 7.0 Conference in Ireland, and as a Keynote Speaker at Panteion University in Greece. She was awarded the 2022-2023 CUNY Dance Initiative, 2022-2023 Hellman Fellows, the 2021 Institute for 21st Century Creativity grand prize, and the three-time recipient of the Department of Cultural Affairs of Los Angeles County Artist-In-Residence. As an educator, she taught drama conventions and Hip Hop dance to genocide survivors at the University of Rwanda (formerly Kigali Institute of Education in Rwanda, Africa); having also taught at Pasadena City College, UCLA EXT, Kansas University, and N.J.P.A.C. (New Jersey Performing Arts Center). Ms. Johnson teaches Jazz and Hip Hop at UCI and is grateful to God from whom all blessings flow.

Title: 
Assistant Professor of Dance
Specialization: 
Hip Hop, Jazz
E-mail: 
ariyanj@uci.edu
Website: 
www.ariyanjohnson.com
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