Rachel Bruce Johnson, Dance Adjunct Faculty. Email: rajohnson@oru.edu
Specialties: Modern, Choreography, Seminar, Ensemble
Degree: M.F.A. Dance Performance/Choreography, Texas Woman's University, Denton,
TX
Biographic Information
Rachel Bruce Johnson is the founder and artistic director of The Bell House
www.bellhousearts.org , a collaborative dance and art cooperative dedicated to creating
opportunity for artistic exchange. Ms. Johnson's film work is centralized around dance
specifically made for the film medium. This entails considering dance and film equally in
all its depth and complexity to fuse the two mediums into the genre of dance for camera.
Ms. Bruce's dance film work includes *we all fall down*, *PASSAGES*, *Ideas in the
Mirror*, and *She Drew a Picture of a Whale*. Ms. Johnson has worked as a soloist,
contributing choreographer and filmmaker for various companies across the U.S. and
abroad. Her work has garnished such critical comments as "captivating" and "excellence
in kinetic artistry" and was included in the acclaimed premiere at the New Genre Festival
presented by the Living Arts Council of Tulsa, OK. Ms. Johnson holds a Master of Fine
Arts degree in Performance and Choreography from Texas Woman's University in
Denton, TX. She has studied with such artists as Melody Ruffin-Ward (Rhode Island
College), Sarah Gamblin (Bebe Miller), Mary Williford-Shade (Mark Taylor), Todd
Rosenlieb (Erik Hawkins Dance Company), and Bill Wade, Jr. (Inlet Dance Theatre). She
is particularly interested in performance process and in creating work for the dance for
camera genre. She has recently worked with the Dance Program at Unitec College in
Auckland, New Zealand to facilitate online exchanges between dance institutions.
Currently, the stage version of She Drew a Picture of a Whale premiered at the Out of the
Loop festival in Dallas, Texas and the dancefilm version will be screened at Dance for
Camera West in LA. Rachel currently performs and choreographs with the Living Water
Dance Company.