Aisha Sasha John is interested in choreographing performances that are the occasion for real and multitudinous actions of love. John is the 2019-2022 Dancemakers Resident Artist. Her first full-length solo work debuted as the aisha of oz at the Whitney Museum in 2017. In 2018, iterations of the aisha of is were presented at Montreal, arts interculturels (MAI) and Toronto’s SummerWorks Festival. From 2015-2017, John choreographed, performed and curated as a member of the collective WIVES, presenting ACTION MOVIE at Montreal’s Théâtre La Chapelle (2017) and winning the 2016 Offta Festival ‘Audacity Prize’ for Feeled (2016). John’s video work and text art have been exhibited in galleries (Doris McCarthy, Oakville Galleries) and was commissioned by Art Metropole as part of Let’s understand what it means to be here (together), a public art residency during which John and four collaborators made performances in Union Station’s west wing. John is the author of the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize nominated collection, I have to live. (McClelland & Stewart 2017), as well as THOU (Book*hug 2014), and the forthcoming chapbook TO STAND AT A PRECIPICE ALONE AND REPEAT WHAT IS WHISPERED (UDP 2021). With Alexa Solveig Mardon, John guest-edited The Capilano Review’s Winter 2021 issue I’m looking for a way to dance.
