Geneviève Johnson is a Nanaimo-based movement artist, choreographer, screendance creator, mentor, and certified Pilates instructor whose interdisciplinary practice bridges dance, theatre, poetry, film, and installation. For over 30 years, she has created and performed over 50 original works across Canada, developing a distinctive “poetry in motion” approach rooted in Butoh, somatic practice, and image-based creation.
After early Butoh training in Canada with Jocelyne Montpetit, Geneviève traveled to Japan in 1999 to study with Kazuo Ohno, Yoshito Ohno, Min Tanaka, and Akiko Motofuji, among others. These experiences profoundly shaped her artistic path and later informed her doctoral research at the Université du Québec à Montréal, where she completed a PhD in Studies and Practices of the Arts in 2008. Her research investigated the poetic, transformative, and connective states of the body in performance through the interweaving of movement, language, memory, and visual imagery. From this ongoing exploration emerged Landscape Under Skin Theatre (LUST), her personal research-creation framework integrating Butoh-inspired image work, poetic language, somatic attention, and material engagement. Through LUST, Geneviève creates what she describes as “poems in motion” – performances and participatory experiences that invite transformation, embodied listening, and connection with self, others, and environment. Her work often unfolds through slowness, fragmentation, durational presence, and the use of found objects, fibers, natural landscapes, and voice.
Alongside her stage and installation practice, Geneviève has increasingly developed work for camera and screendance. Since 2018, she has deepened her film practice through digital media studies at Vancouver Island University, mentorship with filmmaker and visual artist Evann Siebens, and participation in Katrina McPherson’s Screendance in the Landscape residency in Scotland. Her recent creations include Quantum Conversation I & II (with Samantha Letourneau), Threading Side by Side (part of Real_Reality curated by Angela Somerset at Comox Valley Art Gallery), screendance Breathing on Eggshells (selected for Montreal Women Film Festival 2025), and A Song of Years (collaboration with Tedd Robinson and Holly Bright).
Community-engaged creation is central to her artistic practice. Through workshops, mentorships, and collaborative projects, she supports participants and emerging artists in developing personal movement vocabularies and embodied creative processes. In 2026, alongside Samantha Letourneau, she co-founded the GROUNDWĒRK mentoring program in Nanaimo to support grassroots movement artists through mentorship, studio access, training, and performance opportunities.
In parallel to her artistic career, Geneviève has been a certified Pilates instructor since 2003 and teaches Mat, Reformer, Wunda Chair, Trapeze Tower, and CoreAlign at Fine Balance Pilates & Physiotherapy in Nanaimo. Her teaching approach reflects the same embodied attention, care, and curiosity that shape her creative work. You can find some of her Mat Pilates classes on Vimeo at Pilates Classes