Jo Otremba (author of this post) is now the Barron Hilton Archivist for Flight and Space Exploration at Purdue University.
As my time at the Indiana University Archives is coming to a close, I want to share about the two collections that have impacted me the most as a growing archivist: The Modern Organization for Dance Evolvement records and The Carole Y. Johnson papers. These two collections pair together to share the incredible story of Carole Y. Johnson, a Black choreographer, dancer, and activist who founded several dance nonprofit organizations including the Modern Organization of Dance Evolvement (MODE), the Association of Black Choreographers, the National Aboriginal Islander Skills Development Association (NAISDA) Dance College, and the Bangarra Dance Theatre. Johnson is an inductee of the Australian Dance Awards Hall of Fame and received a Centenary Medal for her “service to Australian society through dance and the Indigenous community.”
I was first introduced to Carole’s collection and the MODE records around a year ago when I overheard a conversation among some of the IU Archivists talking about a new accession and how beautiful the records were as they flipped through photographs of Alvin Ailey’s Dance Company. Being a nosey graduate student that wanted to know everything I could about archives, I looked through the boxes and became very interested in learning more. Before I knew it, I was assigned to process the MODE records and later Carole Johnson’s personal papers and fell in love with the stories held in these collections.
Her Story
Carole Y. Johnson was born in Jersey City, New Jersey and grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She grew up taking dance lessons and after high school attended The Julliard School, graduating in 1963. Johnson went on to work on dance initiatives in New York City at the Harlem YMCA and in 1966 joined the Eleo Pomare Dance Company becoming a principal dancer with the group.
A notable area of her work at this time includes the Dancemobile, an initiative of the Harlem Cultural Council and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, where a flatbed truck would drive and park in different neighborhoods of Harlem and various dancers and musicians would put on performances for anyone to attend and enjoy. For more information about the Dancemobile and it’s influence, see “Civic Engagement and Artistic Innovation on New York City’s Dancemobile, 1967-1988” by Emily Hawk.
In 1969, Carole Y. Johnson founded the Modern Organization of Dance Evolvement (MODE) as a space for Black dancers and choreographers to gather and share news regarding performances, auditions, and happenings in the dance community of NYC and beyond. Through MODE, Carole along with other dancers and choreographers organized the First National Congress on Blacks in Dance and brought it to Indiana University Bloomington. This was the major connecting factor for these two collections to end up at the University Archives. To learn more about the MODE conference at IU, check out the MODE records finding aid and this blog post written for the exhibition “Bringing Black Dance to B’Town: MODE and the First National Congress on Blacks in Dance.“
While touring Australia as part of the Eleo Pomare company, Johnson became invested in Australia’s indigenous community. In 1972, she participated in the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, a protest to preserve the rights of indigenous housing in Australia. Her time witnessing the struggles of the Black community in Australia inspired her to move from the United States and become active in the preservation and celebration of Aboriginal dance and culture.
Carole then started working with dancers and choreographers to create Bangarra Dance Theatre, named after the Wiradjuri word Bangarra meaning “to make fire.” Bangarra Dance Theatre and another project of hers, the NAISDA Dance College, are both still successfully operating today. Even today, Carole continues to share her expertise through conference presentations and lectures across the globe.
Reflection
The above is a very brief introduction to Carole Y. Johnson and her story, I highly encourage anyone and everyone to reach out to the IU Archives to find out more. These papers share a unique look at the Black community in 1960s New York City and to the international travel Carole did with different dance companies and programs to locations like Sierra Leone, Germany, Japan, the Philippines, and Australia.
What most thrills me about learning about Carole is how much her records are already impacting current researchers and community members in Bloomington and beyond. It was an immediately rewarding process to see researchers emailing to learn more about her papers and wanting to travel long distances to spend time with the collection. The Modern Organization for Dance Evolvement records and the Carole Y. Johnson papers are open for researchers and available to view; contact the Indiana University Archives to book an appointment for the reading room today!
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