Meet Anastasia

Anastasia Johnson is a dance artist, teacher, and choreographer born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. After receiving her B.A in Dance along with a PreK-12 Virginia Teaching Licensure in Dance Arts from James Madison University in 2017, Johnson relocated to Maryland to further her artistry in the DMV area in 2018. Currently, she holds the title as the Energizers Afterschool Club Manager at Dance Place located in Washington, DC. Since relocating, Johnson has performed with companies and artists such as, Coyaba Dance Theater, VTDance, Ben Levine, Rachel Luebbert, Choreographers Collaboration Project, and Juanita Maria Dance Company. 

As a performer Johnson has worked with various companies and dance makers. In the 5th Annual National Choreography Month DC 2019, she performed on behalf of dance artist Rachel Luebbert as well Juanita Maria Dance company, which led to additional performance opportunities with both. Other staging experience includes working with companies such as, Choreographers Collaboration Project, VT Dance Company, Extreme Lengths Production, Contra-Tiempo, and Coyaba Dance Company. Johnson also performed as a semi professional cheerleader for an arena football team, Richmond Roughriders, and semi professional basketball team, DMV Lady Warriors.

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The love for education started at a young age for Anastasia, being that her mother was also an educator. She received her first teaching position at age 18 at a children learning center. Since then Johnson continued to seek opportunities to develop her abilities as an educator. Prior to receiving the B.A. degree most of her teaching experience at The R.A.R.E. Academy as a dance and modeling instructor as well as camp counselor for three years. However, after departure from James Madison University she continued to gain experience through her current position at Dance Place. Additional teaching experience includes working at New Hope Academy, with ReVison Dance Company as a teaching artist, substitute teaching for Henrico County Public School, and working as a Zumba Instructor.

With the passion for choreographing, Anastasia Johnson developed her own movement based company, A.J. Collabs in 2018. Within the past couple of years, her company as performed in multiple festivals and showings within the DMV area such as Small Plated Festival, Work-In-Progress, Ascending Choreographer’s Festival, and Coalescence: A Visual and Performing Arts Showing (a presentation series created by Anastasia Johnson, Molly Kate Dalton, and Kaitlin Pennington).

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