About Johari

IT ALL STARTED WHEN…

Johari Mayfield realized movement was more than steps—it was a way to communicate, connect, and make room for possibility.

“Live in the movement” became her mantra as a dancer, choreographer, and teaching artist in New York City.

After extensive ballet training with Sylvester Campbell, Johari earned a scholarship to The Ailey School, where she studied for more than two years. She went on to perform with Janet Panetta, Forces of Nature Dance Theatre, Joan Miller’s Dance Players, and others, while developing her own choreographic work.

Today, Johari works across schools, community programs, and professional learning spaces, designing movement experiences that offer multiple ways to participate, communicate, and succeed. Her practice brings together dance, storytelling, visual and tactile supports, AAC, choice, repetition, and play—not to lower expectations, but to create more pathways into the work.

Her teaching has taken her from classrooms and community programs across New York City to a rural primary school in Uganda, and to national dance education conferences where she shares practical approaches to access, resilience, and inclusive arts learning.

Along the way, Mrs. Red Fox emerged—a tutu-wearing trickster rooted in Johari’s love of folklore, humor, movement, and embodied learning.

Johari’s work begins with a simple belief: people are capable. Access gives them more ways to show us.

The Artist

Johari Mayfield is a dancer, choreographer, and creative storyteller whose work moves between ballet, modern dance, hip-hop, African dance, theater, and improvisation. Her artistic language is where Double Dutch meets Martha Graham and Coppélia meets 50 Cent—where discipline meets play, and tradition makes room for surprise. Drawing on decades of performance and lived experience, Johari creates work that is theatrical, curious, and unafraid to disrupt expectations.

The Teaching Artist

Johari brings movement into classrooms and communities as a pathway to learning, expression, and connection. She works with children and adults across ages, abilities, and experiences, using dance, storytelling, visual supports, tactile tools, rhythm, and choice. Her teaching invites each person to participate in a way that is meaningful to them—not by lowering expectations, but by offering more than one way in.