Bianca Johnson (she/her) is a director, choreographer, performer, scholar, and dance educator whose work centers inclusive artistic practice and dance education as a site of liberation. A native New Yorker, Johnson began her dance training at the Joffrey Ballet School, Steps on Broadway, and National Dance Institute (NDI). She is a graduate of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts and holds a BFA in Dance from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, as well as an MA from NYU Steinhardt with a concentration in Dances of the African Diaspora.

Johnson’s performance repertoire includes works by Pat Catterson, Mark Dendy, Elisa King, Igal Perry, Dušan Týnek, and Doug Varone, among others. Her choreography has been presented at the Apollo Theater, CBS Morning Show, Symphony Space, The Kitchen, Jacob’s Pillow, and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Johnson has an extensive career in dance education and community-based arts programming. She has taught for Homes for the Homeless and the Fall for Dance Festival and has led residencies and workshops nationally and internationally with The Misty Copeland Foundation (NYC), Arts in Action (NC), Celebrate the Beat (CO), ConArte (Mexico), Momentum (OH), and NDI New Mexico (NM). She has also created original works for organizations including LaGuardia High School, Youth Pride Chorus, and House of the Roses.

A longtime NDI Teaching Artist (2001–2023), Johnson taught more than 500 children weekly through NDI programs and served as NDI’s Rehearsal Director from 2018 to 2023. She also directed several large-scale NDI productions, including Inner Visions: A Celebration of Stevie Wonder (2012), Harlem Night Song (2017), and Rise: A Celebration of Dr. Maya Angelou (2023), each featuring more than 200 young performers.

In 2012, Johnson founded Bianca Johnson & Dancers (BJ&D), an inclusive dance company dedicated to creative exploration across age, gender expression, culture, and body type. Since the premiere of BJ&D’s first evening-length work, The Woodman Project (2013), the company has participated in the Field Artist Residency Program, Dancenow Silo, the DUMBO Dance Festival, and an Artist-in-Residence program at the University of Saint Joseph (CT). BJ&D has also presented BLEUE (2014) and The Sound of His Living (2016) at the Actors Fund Arts Center in New York City.

Johnson is currently pursuing a PhD in Dance Studies at The Ohio State University, with an expected graduation date of 2030. Her research examines how Black women’s clustering in predominantly White university dance environments functions as an embodied, relational, and spatial practice through which they collectively produce belonging and recognition. As a Graduate Teaching Associate at Ohio State, she has taught Ballet, Dance Education, and Dance in Global Contexts. Her scholarship has been presented nationally at the National Dance Education Organization and the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance, and her research has received support from the FREE Center Graduate Small Grant for Feminist Scholarship Research, the Arts and Humanities Graduate Research Small Grant, and the Creapeau Prize for Excellence. Alongside her scholarly work, Johnson served as a consultant and Associate Artistic Director of Momentum from 2024 to 2026, a Central Ohio nonprofit dedicated to enriching young people’s lives through high-quality dance education.