Over the past 25 years, Jen has studied many dance forms including Ballet, Jazz, Breakdance, Contemporary, Modern, and Classical Chinese Dance. She obtained her Bachelor’s of Arts at Brigham Young University in 2007 with a focus in Modern Dance Performance. As a choreographer and educator, she has taught in private studios, established Creative Dance Programs in Utah and Michigan and taught for an outreach program with Ballet Renaissance in Detroit, Michigan. After certifying as a 200HR Yoga Instructor with Citizen Yoga in Detroit, she incorporated principles from the healing art into her dance teaching work. Since 2010 she has worked as a documentary photographer capturing the essence of families, weddings and businesses. She is currently gaining her MFA in Dance at Montclair State University where she integrates her specialties of movement and visual art in research-based work.
In her graduate studies, she has researched the neurological and perceptual impact of trauma and its physical manifestation within the brain and body through the lens of East Asian studies and neuroesthetics. She developed this interdisciplinary art installation and screendance which addresses this research. In her dance, photography and film work, she tries to shed light on the beauty of hardship and acknowledges the magic in the seemingly ordinary everyday. Sorrow can live in harmony with happiness in this life. Light is beautified by shadow, cool made clear by the warmth, yin incomplete without yang. Our heartaches belong in the same space as our joy, they are what make us whole.
Instagram: @jenleungjohnson
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/jenleung