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Breaking the Wall Podcast
Hosted by NYC based dancer, teacher, and career coach Brandon Coleman, this podcast provides tools to help pre-professional and early career dancers navigate a professional career in the arts. Breaking the Wall is about demystifying the dance industry and taking real action to make our life long dreams come true. As dancers, we spend hours a day and years of our lives honing our craft, but as we step into our careers we need to ask ourselves what we truly want from this life. How is the dance industry changing? Where do I start my career? How can I enjoy the work I'm doing every day? Through stories of success and lessons learned from some epic failures, we will get honest about what we bring to the dance world and what we want our lives to look like in it.
Breaking the Wall Podcast
118. Inspiring Employers and Profiting from Rejection with Claude "CJ" Johnson
CJ and I met back in 2016 while working with Shannon Gillen at Springboard. I was a year into my career and CJ was navigating the end of his college experience. As many dancer are in their early 20's, CJ was full of curiosity, drive, and ambition. Today, not much has changed. Now he spends his time between NYC and Europe as both a dancer, collaborator, and choreographer.
In our talk, CJ talks about big pivots he's had to make over the years, seeking out the worlds most inspiring choreographers, and how dancers can better navigate their careers.
About CJ:
A Chicago native, Cj is a dancer, choreographer, and movement director. After finishing his studies at The Chicago Academy for the Arts and Suny Purchase College, where he was awarded the Adopt-A-Dancer Scholarship, Claude then became a full-time company dancer with A.I.M. by Kyle Abraham from 2017-2022 where he became a Princess Grace 2021 nominee. Claude has gotten the opportunity to perform works by Kyle Abraham, Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown, Aszure Barton, Johannes Weiland, Doug Varone, Kevin Wynn, Nicole Von Arx, Keerati Jinakunwiphat, Princess Madoki , and many more. As a performer and black queer artist, Claude dances to translate the human experience to audiences to recognize the art form of dance as the best catalyst to motivate self-expression and social change. In any artistic space he believes his responsibility is to increase the knowledge and perspective of his community’s vast experience.
Connect with CJ!
Instagram: @Cj4400
Send Brandon a text with your questions or thoughts!
Interested in working with Brandon? He works with pre-professional and early career artist to help them book and build fulfilling work. You can learn more about his coaching HERE
Join the PROS Spring 2025 waitlist HERE: https://brandoncolemandance.aweb.page/p/7b09d56e-cc15-4df4-b8e5-b946aa20a35f
Connect with Brandon!
Join his Email List: HERE
Instagram: @itsBrandonColeman | @BreakingTheWallPodcast
Website: www.BrandonColemanDance.com/BTWP