the company
SOLE Defined is an international touring percussive dance company led by 2024 Guggenheim Choreography Fellow, Ryan K. Johnson, MFA and global Arts Educator, Quynn L. Johnson, Ed.M. The company transforms the body into a living rhythm engine, blending Tap Dance, Body Percussion, and Sand Dance into high-impact, participatory performance experiences that dissolve the line between concert dance, and immersive theater.
SOLE Defined has built a strong national footprint with performances and engagements at leading presenting institutions including The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (including Out of Doors in collaboration with Hi-ARTS), Harlem Stage, Queens Theatre, Smithsonian Institution, Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, Battery Dance Festival, Maui Arts and Cultural Center, Shakespeare Theater (DC), Dance Place, The Wexner Center for Performing Arts, 62’ Center for Theater and Dance and Strathmore, alongside extensive touring across schools, universities, and international cultural festivals.
Artistic Director Ryan Johnson has been praised as “one of the foremost percussive dance artists in the U.S.” (Dance Magazine). SOLE Defined creates evening-length works and touring productions that function as both performance and shared experience. Audiences don’t simply watch, they are invited into layered rhythmic worlds built through call-and-response, polyrhythmic structures, and audience participation that turns theaters into collective instruments. The company’s signature works fuse original musical orchestration, technology, and narrative-driven choreography to translate Black American histories and oral traditions into living, kinetic archives.
Internationally, the company has toured and taught across Brazil, Canada, Peru, Uganda, South Africa, Mexico, and Italy, bringing its signature blend of virtuosity, cultural memory, and audience engagement to global stages. Whether in a proscenium theater, festival setting, or community-centered residency, SOLE Defined delivers work that is rhythmically explosive, deeply human, and designed to activate audiences long after the final beat.
The company has received support from the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project Grant, The John F. Kennedy Center's 2023 "Office Hours" Residency and 2020 Local Dance Commissioning Project, Dance Place Artist in Residence, The International Association of Blacks in Dance, Greater Washington Community Foundation, South Arts and the Maryland State Arts Council.
SOLE Stepz® is SOLE Defined’s arts education program that uses African Diasporic Percussive Dance including Tap Dance Body Percussion and rhythm based movement as tools for learning creativity and personal growth. The program turns classrooms into active learning spaces where students learn through movement collaboration and embodied experience.
Through arts integration SOLE Stepz® connects academic content to rhythm and physical expression. Students explore math through pattern and percussion and strengthen literacy through storytelling and Tap Dance. Each residency workshop and performance is adaptable to school goals and aligned with educational standards.
Social emotional learning is central to the program. Participants build self awareness confidence collaboration skills and empathy through shared creative practice. The teaching approach moves beyond memorization and supports experiential learning that connects directly to students lived experiences.
SOLE Stepz® also offers professional development for educators providing arts integrated strategies that increase engagement support inclusive classrooms and deepen student learning. Through culturally responsive practice the program fosters identity belonging and achievement while making learning active meaningful and memorable.