Joanna Furnans

Executive Director
An individual with short hair, a dark olive button-down shirt, looking into the camera with a gentle smile, against a background of grey artwork.

Performances:

Joanna Furnans (she/her), is a dance artist, writer, and administrator. Her work has been supported by a MANCC Forward Dialogues Laboratory, a Schonberg Offshore Creation Residency at the Yard, an Institutional Incubator Sponsorship at High Concept Labs, a Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist Award, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE), the Chicago Dancers’ Fund, the Chicago Moving Company, Links Hall, and the Walker Art Center’s Choreographer’s Evening. As a dancer in the works of independent artists Kaz Sherman and Morgan Thorson she has performed at Jacob’s Pillow (Becket), the American Realness Festival (NYC), the Fusebox Festival (Austin), the TBA Festival (Portland), the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), the Chocolate Factory (NYC), PS122 (NYC), and the UCLA Center for the Art of Performance (LA). Additionally, Furnans has performed in the works of Chris Schlichting, Kim Brandt, Laurie Van Wieren, the BodyCartography Project, and Ginger Krebs. In 2016 Joanna co-founded the Performance Response Journal, an online platform for writing about dance and hybrid performance in Chicago. To date, this grassroots endeavor has engaged over forty Chicago-based writers and published over eighty creative and critical responses to dance and performance in the city. Her recent graduate research at the University of New Mexico focused on the lived experiences of marginalized, independent dance artists working outside of New York City in the era of global neoliberalism. While pursuing her graduate studies, Furnans held positions in the university’s Division for Equity & Inclusion and the LGBTQ and Women’s Resource Centers. Additionally, she is a proud director on the board of the artist-run Roman Susan Art Foundation NFP.

Contact:

joanna@chicagodancemakers.org