Kristi Vincent Johnson is a Louisiana-born author, filmmaker, and choreographer working at the intersection of dance, film, and cultural storytelling. Her screen-based practice translates movement into narrative film shaped by collaboration, site-specific inquiry, and the lived experiences of Black communities.

Her dance films I Want to Ask the Trees and The Communion of White Dresses, inspired by the poetry of North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green, have screened at such festivals as the San Francisco Dance Film Festival, San Francisco Arthouse Film Festival, and the Tryon Film Festival. Johnson’s work has been recognized for its visual rigor and its commitment to community-centered storytelling.

In recognition of this collaborative ethos, Johnson was selected as a 2021 North Carolina Campus Compact Engaged Faculty Scholar and awarded a 2024 Choreographic Fellowship with the Trillium Arts Residency Program in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. She holds an MFA in Dance from Texas Christian University and a doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She currently serves as Assistant Professor and Director of Dance at North Carolina Central University, where she established the dance minor and founded the Repertory Dance Company, cultivating the next generation of artists through interdisciplinary practice and embodied inquiry.

2025 NC Museum of Art Choreographic Fellow
2024 NC Arts Council Artist Support Grant
2024 Trillium Arts - NC Choreographic Fellow
2024 Hayti Heritage Center ARPA Arts, Culture and Sustainability Award
2024 Hayti Heritage Center Summer Arts Leadership Award
2023 HBCU Entrepreneurship Research Fellow
2022 Excellence in Research, NCCU Department of Theatre
2022 President Award, National Dance Educators’ Organization
2022 North Carolina Arts Council Grant
2021 Engaged Faculty Scholar, North Carolina Campus Compact
2019 Excellence in Teaching, NCCU Department of Theatre
2016 NC Dance Festival Touring Artist
2014 Baba Chuck Davis Scholarship, The American Dance Festival
2013 National Dance Educator of the Year, NDA/AAHPERD