Department of Theatre and Dance

• MFA, The University of Iowa - Choreography
• BFA, New York University - Dance

Chris Yon is a performer, choreographer, and teacher. He mostly performs, choreographs, and sometimes curates, with and for Taryn Griggs. As a performer, he has worked with and for Yoshiko Chuma, Justin Jones, Karinne Keithley, David Neumann, and Kristin Van Loon. Yon’s choreographies have been presented nationally and internationally at American Dance Festival, Dance Theater Workshop, Performance Space 122, La Mama, Symphony Space, The Kitchen, Danspace Project, Gershwin Hotel, CBGB's, The Knitting Factory, Walker Art Center, The Southern Theater, Bryant Lake Bowl, Philadelphia Dance Project, ODC Theater, Velocity Dance Center, Highways Performance Space, Pieter, Project Art Centre (Dublin), Tangente (Montreal), CiteDanse (Grenoble), Legion Arts (Cedar Rapids), and Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (Winston-Salem). His work has been commissioned by The Danish National School of Performing Arts (Copenhagen), The Wooden Floor (Santa Ana), Irish Modern Dance Theatre (Dublin), d9 dance collective (Seattle), the North Carolina Dance Festival, and Greenhill Gallery.

Chris has had residencies and space grants from Trillium Arts, MANCC, The Yard, SILO and BAX. Co-founder of Ur, your neighborhood dance palace in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 2003-2005. Recipient: 2003 NYFA Fellowship for Performance Art, 2005 BESSIE Award for Performance, 2009 SAGE Award for Choreography, 2011 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Choreography, 2015 City Pages Best Choreographer. BFA, NYU. MFA, University of Iowa. 

Since 2022, Yon has been collaborating and performing with Taryn Griggs and their daughter Bea as The Yoggs and they have presented their family show at The Southern Theater in Minneapolis, Dance Limerick in Ireland as part of Modes of Capture Symposium, La MaMa in New York, Black Mountain College Museum and Art Center, and co-presented by the Nasher Museum and American Dance Festival in Durham. Since moving to North Carolina, Yon has taught at Appalachian State University, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and Wake Forest University.  He started full-time as an Assistant Professor at Appalachian State in Fall 2024. 

Website: https://chrisandtaryn.com