Abby Johnson

Abby is an independent dancer who has performed both within Australia and internationally.  She obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance Performance) from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and a Bachelor of Arts (Dance) Honours as a member of LINK Dance Company, Western Australia. During this time she toured and performed in China and throughout Europe. In 2011, along with four colleagues from university, Abby founded MakeShift Dance Collective in Brisbane. The collective has gone on to choreograph and produce multiple works resulting in successful performance seasons in Brisbane and interstate including 'The Present Past' (Brisbane Festival 2012), 'Paper Thin' (Dance. Indie Dance), 'Three Easy Steps' (Anywhere Theatre Festival 2013) and 'The Only Way Left is Right' (Brisbane Emerging Arts Festival 2013). The collective were also recently invitied to perform at Strange Attractor in Canberra, a dance festival coinciding with the 2013 Australian Dance Awards.   

Throughout the first half of 2012, Abby completed a dance residency with Maya Dance Theatre, Singapore, performing locally in Singapore and also touring and dancing with the company in India and Indonesia. She also presented her own work integrating live performance and dance film. In 2013 Abby returned to Singapore to perform as a project artist in Maya Dance Theatre’s production Release 2.0.

Early 2014 saw Abby participating in The Corner Dance Lab at Jasper Corner in Federal, NSW. The event was hosted by Philip Channells and Gavin Webber and saw particiants completing workshops and choreographic explorations alongside other dancers with and without disabilities. Abby has also recently completed MakeShift’s first DirtyFeet Choreographic Lab at the Shopfront Contempoary Arts & Performance space in Carlton, NSW.

Image Credit: FenLan Photography