“ Ryan and Quynn as co-leaders are incredibly creative and have impressive background individually which makes their work together over the top”
Temisha Richardson,
Prince George’s County Public Schools
Ryan K. Johnson, M.F.A
Co-Founder & Executive Artistic Director
Ryan K. Johnson, MFA, is a choreographer, rhythm architect, scholar, and cultural worker whose work advances African Diasporic Percussive Dance through performance, education, and embodied research. Hailed by Dance Magazine as "one of the foremost percussive dance artists in the U.S." In 2024, Johnson became the first African American body percussionist to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography, recognized for expanding the expressive and political potential of rhythm in contemporary performance. Currently he serves as Assistant Professor of Theater and Dance at Tulane University.
Johnson leads the organization's artistic vision, national touring, and strategic growth. He is the creator of Gumbo Theory, an interdisciplinary framework that understands rhythm as a living system of cultural memory, collaboration, and innovation. His creative practice blends tap dance, body percussion, original music, oral history, and multimedia design to transform Black histories into immersive contemporary performance while expanding African Diasporic Percussive Dance as both artistic practice and embodied scholarship.
His leadership and creative research have been recognized through the 2025 Arts Midwest Cultural Bearer Award, a NEFA National Dance Project Award, the 2026 SOZO Fellowship, the Mid-America Arts Alliance EngageUS Cohort supported by the Windgate Foundation, and the Mid-Atlantic Arts Cultural Sustainability Cohort. He has held residencies with NCCAkron, The Wexner Center for the Arts, and served as the first percussive dance artist in residence for The Kennedy Center’s Office Hours program.
His performance career includes The Beatles LOVE by Cirque du Soleil, STOMP, Step Afrika!, After Midnight, Musicá by Amazon Studios, Ayodele Casel’s REMIX (as Assistant Director and Choreographic Contributor), and The Washington Ballet’s The Great Gatsby. Johnson's choreography has been presented at leading institutions including Jacob's Pillow, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center, The Joyce Theater, and the Wexner Center for the Arts blurring the boundaries between dance, music, and theater.
Learn more at www.rkjdance.com
Quynn Johnson, Ed. M
Co-Founder & Director of Arts Education
Quynn L. Johnson, Ed.M., is a multidisciplinary performing artist, arts educator, and cultural leader whose work explores the intersection of rhythm, education, and cultural legacy. A graduate of Harvard University (Ed.M.) and Howard University (B.S.), she is a 2025–2026 Dance/USA Artist Fellow and the first percussive dancer to receive a John F. Kennedy Center Local Dance Commissioning Project award.
As Director of Education for SOLE Defined, Johnson develops the organization's nationally recognized educational initiatives, designing arts-integrated programs that connect rhythm, literacy, mathematics, and social-emotional learning for students, educators, and communities. Her educational leadership has helped establish SOLE Defined as a national model for culturally responsive arts education, reaching more than 85,000 youth and educators annually through performances, residencies, and professional development across the United States and internationally.
An accomplished performer, Johnson has appeared in After Midnight (Norwegian Cruise Line), Diary of a Tap Dancer(American Repertory Theater), The Remix and Chasing Magic (The Joyce Theater), UnSung Sheroes by Dormeshia (Jacob's Pillow and The Joyce Theater), The Great Gatsby with The Washington Ballet, Latido Negro by Rafael Santa Cruz, Savion Glover's TiiDii3000 Company, and SOLE Defined's nationally touring productions.
Johnson is also recognized as one of the nation's leading contemporary practitioners of Sand Dance, preserving and reimagining the form as a living archive within concert performance, education, and interdisciplinary creation. She is the author of Lucky's Tap Dancing Feet, a children's book and workbook that extends her commitment to joyful, culturally responsive, rhythm-based learning for young people.
Learn more at www.quynnjohnson.com
