Contributor

Aisha Sasha John is interested in choreographing performances that occasion real love. She’s passionate about the creative potential of surrender, and builds structures through her choreographic work that allow for experiences of entrancement. The expressive possibilities exclusive to Black being-together is her ongoing research interest. John’s duet DIANA ROSS DREAM (Danse-cité) premiered in fall 2022 and was developed during a 2019-2022 Dancemakers choreographic residency. Her first full-length solo work debuted as the aisha of oz at the Whitney Museum in 2017, and in 2018, iterations of the aisha of is were presented at 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 La Chapelle (2017). With Julia Thomas, John choreographed and performed WE ARE HANGING OUT RIGHT NOW (Videofag and Buddies 2016). John’s video work and text art have been exhibited in galleries (Doris McCarthy, Oakville Galleries) and was commissioned by Art Metropole as Let’s understand what it means to be here (together), a public art residency in which John and collaborators made performances in Union Station’s west wing. A celebrated poet, John is the author of the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize nominated collection, I have to live. (McClelland & Stewart 2017), THOU (Bookhug 2014), TO STAND AT A PRECIPICE ALONE AND REPEAT WHAT IS WHISPERED* (UDP 2021), and is currently at work on her fourth collection, total. Aisha was named the inaugural associate artist at Toronto Dance Theatre in 2023.