Jill Johnston in Motion

Performer, activist, and writer Jill Johnston was a major queer presence in the history of dance and 1970s feminism. She was the first critic to identify postmodernisms arrival in American dance and was a fierce advocate for the importance of lesbians within feminism. In Jill Johnston in Motion, Clare Croft tracks Johnstons entwined innovations and contributions to dance and art criticism and activism. She examines Johnstons journalism and criticismin particular her Village Voice columns published between 1960 and 1980and her books of memoir and biography. At the same time, Croft attends to Johnstons appearances as both dancer and audience member and her physical and often spectacular participation at feminist protests. By bringing together Johnstons criticism and activism, her writing and her physicality, Croft emphasizes the effect that the arts, particularly dance, had on Johnstons feminist thinking in the 1970s and traces lesbian feminisms roots in avant-garde art practice.