Back to directory

John Cartwright

Lecturer, Dance
Curriculum Vitae

Quick Information

Contact

Office Hours

By appointment

Affiliations

  • Dance Science
  • Performance and Visual Studies
  • Artists and Scholars in Residence Committee
  • TAMU Veera - Faculty Sponsor
  • LGBTQ Professional Network
  • National Dance Education Organization
  • Texas Dance Improvisation Festival

Helpful Links

Biography

John Cartwright is multi-disciplinary intermedia dance artist and educator whose research is focused on creating work that liberates queer bodies and celebrates queer joy. He holds an M.F.A. in Dance with a Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Fine Arts from The Ohio State University and a B.S. in Dance – Arts Administration from Butler University. John is a member of 8 out of 8 Artist Collective, a collaborative experimental performance group co-founded by the members of his M.F.A. cohort, and the co-founder of For Me, For You, a creative-making partnership with interdisciplinary artist Elizabeth Sugawara. In his previous professional career, John performed and choreographed for the Louisville Ballet, Thodos Dance Chicago, and Chicago Repertory Ballet, as well as performing as a guest artist with several Chicagoland companies. His work has been presented in Chicago, IL, Louisville and Lexington, KY, Columbus, OH, and across the nation in touring productions and educational shows. As an educator, John centers his work on expanding students’ understanding of dance’s technical, performative, historical, and theoretical elements. Most recently he was a Graduate Teaching Associate at The Ohio State University specializing in composition, contemporary, ballet, and jazz. Currently, John is the Dance Composition faculty at the Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts, a summer residency program for high school juniors and seniors hosted at the University of Kentucky. Previously, he was the Faculty Head of the Secondary Program for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s Youth Dance Program, Co-Artistic Director of Thodos Dance Chicago’s Youth Ensemble, and a dance instructor at several Chicagoland studios. Over the years John has worked with students of all ages ranging from youth programs to open classes for seniors.  He has learned that while all bodies move differently, the lessons learned from dance are continuously emergent and unfolding. This is John’s second year on faculty at Texas A&M University as a Lecturer in Dance.

Education

M.F.A. Dance - Interdisciplinary Specialization in Fine Art

The Ohio State University – 2023

B.S. Dance - Arts Administration

Butler University – 2008

Scholarly Interests

  • Improvisation in Process and Performance
  • Intermedia Performance
  • Interdisciplinary Collaborative Performance
  • Queer Dance

Courses

DCED 260

Ballet I

2 Credit Hours
DCED 361

Ballet II

2 Credit Hours
DCED 217

Musicality and Movement for Performers

3 Credit Hours
DCED 202

Dance Appreciation

3 Credit Hours
DCED 463

Movement Lab: Ballet III

2 Credit Hours
DCED 250

Contemporary Ballet

2 Credit Hours
DCED 265

Performance Practicum

1 Credit Hours
PERF 325

Dance In World Cultures

3 Credit Hours

Staff Resources

Image carousel. Use arrow keys to navigate.

Projects + Creative Works

Image carousel. Use arrow keys to navigate.

  • A solo performance created by John Cartwright in collaboration with multidisciplinary artist Elizabeth Sugawara, I don’t remember when it started is the first piece crafted by the duo also known as For Me, For You. The work employs absurd humor and queer melancholia in an effort to liberate the current self from past lenses. Enmeshing himself in the residue of frustrated freedom, the performer invites viewers to consider their own playful expression of queerness. This piece premiered at Urban Arts Space in Columbus, OH, January 2023.

  • Working together in a creative process centered around values of collaborative community and interdependence, 8 out of 8 Artist Collective was born out of an MFA cohort bound together during the early isolationist months of the Covid-19 pandemic.

    Inevitable Circling: the work of dreams is a cycle, a recurrence, a spiraling return to origin and imagination. The collaborators come from a variety of nationalities, community origins, and cultural identities, to weave together their own imagined stories of the cosmos and creation. Through the performance, they acknowledge the cyclical nature of living, dying, and transforming; telling and retelling one story from eight perspectives. This interactive, audience participatory piece premiered at Urban Arts Space in Columbus, OH in November 2021.

  • Echoed Memories is an improvised dance theater piece that explores how our identities and memories echo through the body, space, and time. Engaging the theater practice of Viewpoints developed by Mary Overlie and Anne Bogart and the dance improvisation techniques of Barbara Mettler, this piece is a highly structured improvised performance complete with audience interaction and multimedia elements. Echoed Memories was created in collaboration with dance students at Texas A&M University and premiered in the Perpetual Motion concert February 2024.

  • You’re It! investigates the physicality of childhood play and how bodies endure rigor through gamified experience and peer support. Taking inspiration from games like Tag, Red Rover, Hide-n-Seek, and Trust Falls, this piece pushes the performer’s stamina in a whirlwind experience. You’re It! was created for the dancers at the Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts and premiered at the Singletary Center for the Arts on the campus of the University of Kentucky in July 2023.

  • Echo Score or VTSDEFR is an improvisational dance work that explores the idea of echo as a means of physical impetus, and investigates how collage might be used as a structural form for crafting a dance improvisation score. Working with the concepts of Mary Overlie’s and Anne Bogart’s Viewpoints, this work asks the dancers to hone their ensemble improvisational skills and to work together to craft a layered, textured composition. Echo Score or VTSDEFR was created in collaboration with the dancers at the Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts and premiered at the Singletary Center for the Arts on the campus of the University of Kentucky in July 2023.

  • What does rigor look like? What does it feel like? What does it sound like? With the dance world and academia obsessed with proving rigor for validated support, Sounds Like Rigor questions what the physiological and physical implications are in performing rigor for the gaze of others. This dark comedy, dance theater work pushes its performers to the limits of physical exhaustion and tests the limits of audience uncomfortability. Sounds Like Rigor was created in collaboration with the dancers at the Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts and premiered at the Singletary Center for the Arts on the campus of the University of Kentucky in July 2024.