REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

Web Developer / Interactive Designer for Decolonization Platform

Project Overview:
Emily Johnson, a choreographer based in Lenapehoking (New York City) and a citizen of the Yup’ik Nation, is seeking a web designer/developer to build two interconnected websites: one to reimagine and redesign her existing site and another to house and expand the work of the Decolonization Rider, Decolonization Assessment, and related institutional transformation tools. Both sites will be beautifully designed, responsive, and interactive, centering decolonization, transparency, and storytelling.

The Decolonization Rider and Assessment were created as tools to support artists and institutions in building accountable, transparent, and equity-centered relationships. They are meant for arts leaders, presenters, funders, and institutions committed to transformative change, and for Indigenous and global majority artists navigating extractive systems. These tools guide conversations, reveal patterns, and foster long-term shifts by rooting decision-making in consent, kinship, and accountability.

Emily Johnson / Catalyst works to increase recognition, support, and equity for Indigenous performance practices, presenting, and research. The work honors healing, relationality, and self-determined community processes while upholding Indigenous sovereignty. At its core, this project is about dismantling harm and reclaiming the radical power of performance as a force for cultural and structural change.

This project builds upon Emily’s current work, which includes:

Mission of the Website:
The new site will serve as an engaging public platform that:

  • Shares structural change stories with and by institutions and artists

  • Offers a free and accessible Decolonization Rider template

  • Visualizes annual assessment data and qualitative feedback

  • Highlights institutions doing meaningful decolonial work and those with work to do

  • Encourages transparency, celebration, and accountability

  • Creates a digital space for artists and institutions to access models of kinship-based budgets and mutual transformation

  • Is developed with a client-friendly interface that supports easy content updates by Catalyst staff—ideally using no-code design tools or accompanied by tutorials for seamless content management via the hosting platform

We’re Looking For:
A designer/developer or studio with a portfolio of thoughtful, responsive, interactive websites, especially those using storytelling, data visualization, or scrollytelling formats. This project is ideal for creatives who care deeply about justice, accessibility, and design that informs and invites.

We strongly encourage applications from individuals and studios who bring lived experience and intentionality to their work, including Indigenous, disabled, 2SLGBTQIA+, BIPOC, and women-led teams. We are committed to a values-driven process that disrupts extractive and transactional models, and we seek collaborators excited to build within an ethic of relationality, care, and transformation.

Key Skills Required:

  • Able to support Indigenous processes of respect, care and reciprocity and ensure that those values are followed at all levels of communications, planning and work 

  • Responsive Web Development: HTML, CSS, JavaScript

  • Scroll-Based Animation: GSAP, ScrollTrigger, or Locomotive Scroll

  • Data Visualization: D3.js, Chart.js, or Highcharts

  • Framework Experience: React, Vue, or Svelte

  • UX & Accessibility: Familiarity with WCAG, ARIA, and keyboard navigation

  • Design Collaboration: Figma or Adobe XD

  • Storytelling/Editorial Design: Demonstrated ability to guide users through a narrative with clear hierarchy and visual flow

  • Optional: Webflow or other low/no-code CMS tools if that supports ongoing updates by the internal team

Inspirational References:

Key Features in the Reference Examples

Interaction & Storytelling

  • Scroll-triggered storytelling and transitions

  • Click-to-reveal modular content (ideal for surfacing quotes, testimonials, or partner stories)

  • Integrated data visualization within the user journey

  • Interactive, multi-format design (e.g., flipbooks, dashboards, video)

Design Aesthetics

  • Clean, minimal interface with strong visual hierarchy and typography

  • Balanced use of text and imagery with ample white space

  • Visually engaging layouts that support storytelling and theme emphasis

Responsiveness & Accessibility

  • Fully responsive design across desktop, tablet, and mobile

  • Mobile-friendly and accessible layout

  • Intuitive navigation that maintains user focus while encouraging exploration

To Apply:
This is a fully remote contract role. Please send your portfolio and any relevant links to past projects, especially those involving data storytelling, editorial design, or interactive web experiences. Share your general timeline and availability as well. The budget for this project is up to $18,000, inclusive of all design, development, and coordination costs.

Contact:
Please send your materials to info@catalystdance.com with “Web Developer” in the subject line to ensure proper review.

 
 

Emily Johnson / Catalyst seeks an enthusiastic and intentional Executive Administrative Steward

The full-time Executive Administrative Steward position encompasses a broad range of responsibilities in support of Emily Johnson / Catalyst’s mission. The Executive Administrative Steward is vital in the ongoing support and day-to-day operations of Emily Johnson as an independent dance artist and organizer and the company, Emily Johnson / Catalyst.

To learn more, please view the full job description and requirements below.

 
 
Office, Minneapolis, MN, US612.597.7400emily@catalystdance.com

Emily Johnson / Catalyst is based on Mannahatta in Lenapehoking. We work to pay respect to Lenape homeland, people and ancestors past, present, and future by organizing with communities from the Lenape diaspora to build pathways for Lenapeyok return. We have been taught to name Lenape Nations and say cama’i to our relatives from Delaware Tribe of Indians in Bartlesville, OK; Delaware Nation of Oklahoma in Anadarko, OK; Stockbridge-Munsee and Mohican Community in Wisconsin; Moravian Delaware of the Thames in Ontario, Canada; Munsee-Delaware Nation at Munceytown in Ontario, Canada; Delaware of Six Nations in Ontario, Canada. 

We strive to be in good relations with our kin—human and more than human—and in effort to support growing kinstillatory relations and sovereign, liberated futures we are anti-colonial and abolitionist in all capacities. We are committed to on-the-ground water and land protection, consistent decolonization work, and Land Back. 

Quyanaqvaa-lli elpeni to all Sovereign Nations, Indigenous and First Nations people who live in relation to and from Lenapehoking and upon whose lands we work and tour.

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