Johanna Kasimow is an Iowa City-based director, writer, and performer in the field of theater and performance. Her recent creative research focuses on the interplay of clown and affect in performance in a new play titled The Grüb, which probes the sensations of hiding, trans-generational inheritance, and the rhythms of survival in an underground pit.

Johanna has worked with artists and companies across the US, including: Pig Iron Theatre Company, The Eva Steinmetz Project, Antigravity Performance Project, Tiny Circus, New Paradise Laboratories, Nell Bang-Jensen, Talya Chalef, Lily Kind, and Alex Tatarsky. In 2023, Johanna was a participant in the NEH Summer Institute for Preserving and Transmitting American Ensemble-Based Devised Theatre hosted by the Pig Iron Theatre Company. Recently, Johanna premiered City In Heat, a site-specific live cinema performance piece, as part of the Open Air Media Festival at Public Space One in Iowa City.

Johanna’s teaching and research has focused on clown and mask; civic and social practice art; community-based theatre; theatre of the climate crisis; and contemporary performance. Johanna received an MFA in Devised Performance from the University of the Arts/Pig Iron School in Philadelphia and is an Assistant Professor of Directing in the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Iowa.