Molly Johnston
Co-founder of DanceBARN Collective (Battle Lake, Minnesota)
Sessions: Bringing Dance to Your Rural Community: Starting a Dialogue (Friday, 11am – 12:15pm)
Pre-plenary performance: Rural Prosperity through the Arts and Creative Sector (Friday, 1:30pm)
Molly Johnston is a dancer, teacher, choreographer, screendancer, and co-founder of DanceBARN Collective. Her roots lie in Minnesota, but dance has taken her from the land of 10,000 lakes to Philadelphia, PA (BFA, University of the Arts), Eugene, OR (MFA, University of Oregon) and back to Minnesota where she worked as Zenon Dance Company and School’s school coordinator before moving to rural Minnesota to pursue her passion for creating dance in rural communities. Since making the big move to small town Minnesota, Molly has cohosted the annual DanceBARN Festival and curated many other events, classes, and workshops in the region. Molly resides on Silver Lake in Battle Lake, MN with her husband and son and is excited about continuing the collective effort of creating professionally charged dance making to the community she loves and spreading the idea that dance can be a language that connects rural communities.