Meet Suki John, PHD & TJAA Director of Dance

Suki John, PhD, is the Texas Jewish Arts Association Director of Dance, and a Professor in the School for Classical & Contemporary Dance at Texas Christian University. Suki has worked internationally as a dance artist and scholar. Suki has choreographed for Ballet Nacional de Cuba, Danza Contemporánea de Cuba, Snug Harbor/Staten Island Center for the Arts, Narciso Medina, Danza Espiral, Ritmo Flamenco, Culture Project, Connecticut Repertory Theater, Adelphi University, Cuba’s Superior Institute of the Arts, NYU, TCU and the University of New Mexico. A widely published author, her book Contemporary Dance in Cuba: técnica cubana as Revolutionary Movement is a personal and scholarly account.

Suki originally choreographed Sh’ma in the former Yugoslavia. Not long afterwards, the horrific tragedy of the Bosnian war impelled Suki to tell her mother’s story again in New York, as new “Never Agains” reverberated across the globe. Based on her family’s experience in the Holocaust, Suki has staged Sh’ma in Europe and New York, and shown excerpts at the New York Festival of Jewish Culture, YIVO, B’Nai Jeshrun, Fort Monmouth Army Base, and the Dallas Museum of Biblical Arts. She is recreating the choreodrama Sh’ma for the present moment. The choreodrama is the heart of The Sh’ma Project for Holocaust and Human Rights Art and Education, with an emphasis on reaching out to young viewers.