Johnson also began his training in dance in 1977 with Joan Woodbury at the University of Utah, where he completed two undergraduate degrees in Psychology and English. Johnson kept training with Goldston during this period and created a young mime troupe with Diana Wagman and Stephen Blakeslee, Ménage a Mime. Moving to New York City in 1980, Johnson continued to train in dance with Frank Hatchett, Richard Levi, and Ron De Marco. He also continued his parallel training with renowned Polish mime director/performer Stefan Niedzialkowski and became a member of Niedzialkowski’s New York company, Mimedance Theatre, performing in New York from 1979 to 1982. During the same time at the School for Mimes in Ohio, Johnson began to fuse his eclectic training into an artistic vision of choreography that reflects mime and dance.
In 1990, Johnson developed ALITHEA CREATIONS, a company dedicated to the production of single-discipline and multidisciplinary performances in mime theatre. Recognizing the need for a strong identity in American mime theatre, Johnson began to create new works and restage former company pieces that would later become the touring repertory for the Alithea Mime Theatre, a performing company that would highlight his group and solo choreography. His relationship with his partner and wife, Sabrina Vasquez, would be a lifelong collaboration that has birthed many dance, mime, and theatrical projects with Vasquez as co-artistic director of Alithea’s many diverse creative endeavors.
Moving to Tucson, AZ, in 1987, Nick earned his MFA degree in Dance/Drama at the University of Arizona, training in dance with John Wilson, Douglas Nielsen, Jory Hancock, and Melissa Lowe. In 1994, after completing the MFA, further blending of the arts occurred when Johnson, working closely with his film mentor and director of photography Michael Rae, premiered his production Seg way, a multidisciplinary performance combining 16mm film with mime, dance, and original music. After its restaging, the production was introduced to Chicago audiences at the Ruth Page Theater in 1996. In 1997, Alithea Mime Theatre performed his repertory works at the Athenaeum Theatre in Chicago.
Johnson moved to Wichita, KS, to become director of dance at Wichita State University (WSU), teaching mime and dance. He received a 1998 Kansas Arts Commission fellowship for his multidisciplinary vision. Fusing mime theatre, dance, and film, he also placed first and third in the 1998 Kan Film Festival for the experimental Seg way films and won first place in the 2002 Wichita National Short Film Competition. Simultaneously, Johnson, Vasquez, and fellow faculty Denise Celestin created the Wichita Contemporary Dance Theatre (WCDT), a touring company drawing from the immense talent of students completing degrees in the WSU School of Performing Arts Dance Program.
As artistic director of The Alithea Mime Theatre, the company now identified as a professional company in residence at WSU, Johnson, together with Sabrina Vasquez, has toured Alithea to the International Mime Art Festival in Warsaw, Poland in May 1999, 2000, and 2009; the first International Mime and Physical Theatre Festival in San Juan, Puerto Rico in May 2001; and the China Shanghai International Arts Festival in 2004. The company was invited to perform Angels Rising at the United Nations in 2006, a highlight of Johnson’s career. Alithea choreography, combined with WCDT tours, has also been performed in Taiwan, Colima in Mexico, and Aviano in Italy.
Further exploration of interdisciplinary theatrical projects combining movement with film and stage led to the creation of numerous children’s theatre productions during residencies at the Cactus Shadows Fine Arts Center in Cave Creek, AZ. Working closely with Evelyn Holbrook to provide creative self-expression to young people, Johnson and Vasquez created The Nickracker in 1996, Alice in 2000 and 2003, A Midsummer’s Nightmare in 2004, Once Upon a Planet in 2005, Symphony of Silence in 2006, Cinderella in 2007, Don Quixote in 2008, The Odyssey in 2009, NOW! in 2011, and Carnival of the Animals in 2012.
Pursuing a vision of innovation, Johnson, in collaboration with Vasquez and Denise Celestin, wrote and directed a new multidisciplinary production, The Wiyos of Oz, in 2010, which was performed by the WCDT. The performance premiered at WSU and combined film and dance theatre with the live music of The Wiyos in an original retelling of the familiar Kansan story. The production toured Kansas, with performances in Ft. Hays and Pittsburg, and concluded at Wichita’s Orpheum Theatre.
In 2015, Johnson, in collaboration with dance faculty choreographers Vasquez, Celestin, and Cheyla Chandler, wrote and directed Brave New World, an on-site theatrical production performed in four locations on the WSU campus. This experiment in immersive theatre began in the swimming pool of the WSU Heskett Center, walked the audience to one indoor and two outdoor locations, and returned to the pool for the final scene. Celebrated for its innovation, the production was performed on four evenings and captured the attention of the campus and Wichita community.
Johnson creates original works, teaches each semester for the WSU Dance Program, offers master classes in mime theatre, performs with arts partners for elementary and middle schools with his daughter Zoe (his favorite performances), and presents national touring dance companies for the WSU College of Fine Arts’ Connoisseur Series.
Sabrina Vasquez is currently an instructor at WSU, the associate artistic director of Wichita Contemporary Dance Theatre, and the associate artistic director of Alithea Mime Theatre with her husband of 15 years, Nick Johnson. Her dance choreography has been seen nationally and internationally with WCDT, which toured Kansas with The Wiyos of Oz and repertory concerts in Taiwan, Colima in Mexico, and Aviano in Italy. Alithea Mime Theatre has performed in the International Mime Art Festival in Warsaw, Poland in May 1999, 2000, and August 2009; the first International Mime and Physical Theatre Festival in San Juan, Puerto Rico in May 2001, the China Shanghai International Arts Festival in 2004, and the United Nations in New York City in 2006.
