Virginia Johnson

Former artistic director and ballet dancer Virginia Johnson was born on January 25, 1950 in Washington, D.C. to Madeline Murray Johnson and James Lee Johnson, Jr. At age three, she studied at the Therrell Smith School of Ballet. In 1963, Johnson was awarded a scholarship to study at The Washington School of Ballet. She graduated from the Washington School of Ballet in 1968. She went on to attend New York University.

In 1969, Johnson joined Dance Theatre of Harlem, a racially diverse company that Arthur Mitchell cofounded to dispel the myth that African Americans did not belong in ballet. Following the company's premiere at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City in 1971, Johnson rose through the ranks to become a principal/lead ballerina. In addition to touring across the country with Dance Theatre of Harlem, she appeared in the dance television series Margot Fonteyn's The Magic of Dance in 1979 and Natalia Makarova's Ballernina in 1987. Onstage, she performed the leading roles in A Streetcar Named Desire in 1982, Fall River Legend in 1983, and Creole Giselle in 1984. In 1986, A Streetcar Named Desire was broadcast on PBS’s Dance in America television series and in 1987 Creole Giselle was the first full-length ballet production broadcast on NBC. Bravo Network broadcast Fall River Legend in 1989. In addition to these performances, Johnson toured with the Dance Theatre of Harlem to the Soviet Union in 1988, and to South Africa in 1992. Johnson often performed as a guest artist with the Washington Ballet and the Capitol Ballet as well as Stars of the World Ballet in 1978, Ballet Nacional de Cuba in 1989 and Britain's Royal Ballet in 1992.

In 1997, Johnson retired from performing and enrolled at Fordham University to study communications. In 2000, she became the founding editor of Pointe, an international ballet magazine, and served as its editor in chief for nine years. At Arthur Mitchell's invitation, Johnson returned to Dance Theatre of Harlem in 2010 to serve as its artistic director. In 2018, Johnson partnered with other dance groups and associations to launch The Equity Project: Increasing the Presence of Blacks in Ballet. Johnson retired in 2023 and joined New York University's Center for Ballet and the Arts as a visiting scholar.

Johnson has received honorary doctorates from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington; Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania; and the Juilliard School in New York, New York. Among numerous awards for her work in dance are the 1985 Young Achiever Award from the National Council of Women in the United States; Washington Performing Arts Society's 2008-2009 Pola Nirenska Lifetime Achievement Award; the 2023 Dance in Focus Award from Dance on Camera; and the Bessies 2023 Lifetime Achievement in Dance Award.

Johnson resides in New York, New York.

Virginia Johnson was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on February 18, 2023.