Shakia “The Key” Johnson is an accomplished choreographer, performer, and educator specializing in Street and Club dance forms. She is an Associate Professor of Dance at Mount Holyoke College and serves as the Artistic Director of Kia The Key & Company. Johnson is known for her passionate teaching and dedication to celebrating the roots and history of these dance forms, helping to make them accessible within academic spaces. She values and aims to create possibilities for embodied connection by using movement and music to generate kinesthetic empathy for both members and guests of the cultural forms she practices and teaches. Her commitment to creating meaningful work and teaching foundational technique in Black social dance forms is what makes her an influential and respected artist in the field.
Johnson brings a powerhouse of experience to the stage and studio. She has choreographed and directed over 70 works rooted in Hip-Hop, Funk Styles, and House dance, with performances featured at major colleges, universities, and world-renowned dance institutions such as Bates Dance Festival and Jacob’s Pillow. Her dynamic presence has taken her across the country and around the world, touring with Face Da Phlave Entertainment, Illstyle and Peace Productions, and appearing as a guest artist with the legendary Rennie Harris Puremovement.
As a dance educator, Johnson spent many years teaching at the Bates Dance Festival and led community classes at Jacob’s Pillow. She is a faculty member with the Dance Education Laboratory (DEL), where she has facilitated numerous professional development workshops focused on integrating Hip-Hop dance and history into the curriculum. On PBS in 2022, PS Dance! The Next Generation was released, featuring Johnson and her contributions to the DEL program. She was the 2019 Arthur Levitt Jr. ’52 Artist-in-Residence at Williams College, received the 2023 Excellence in Teaching award from Bates Dance Festival, and served as the 2024-2025 Cowles Artist and Scholar in Residence at the University of Minnesota. Johnson recently showcased her evening-length work, The Gathering, on August 20, 2026, at Jacob’s Pillow in Becket, MA.
