Lorin Johnson

Lorin Johnson worked under the direction of Mikhail Baryshnikov and Helgi Tomasson. He danced professionally with the San Francisco Ballet and the San Francisco Ballet. He was a guest artist with the New York City Ballet and the Pacific Northwest Ballet. He created original roles in ballets by renowned choreographers such as Ulysses Dove, Clark Tippet and Agnes DeMille, among others, and worked with some of the 20th century's most influential choreographers, including Glen Tetley, Kenneth Macmillan, Twyla Tharp, and Jerome Robbins. Johnson's choreographic work has been described as "dynamic" and "electrifying" and has seen both in the US and abroad. His pieces were presented in the Fabbrica Europa Dance Festival in Florence, Italy; Celebrate Dance 2010 in Los Angeles; the Orange County Performing Arts Center's Invitational Dance Festival; the Laguna Dance Festival, directed by Jodie Gates; SOLA, directed by Regina Klenjoski; and the Dance Under the Stars Choreography Festival in Palm Springs. He has been artist in residence at such universities as Skidmore College in New York, and at the Orange County High School of the Arts (OCHSA) in Southern California. Johnson has choreographed for the American Ballet Theatre Studio Company for the 2005 Ballet Pacifica Academy production of The Nutcracker and has created seven original works for the American Ballet Theatre Summer Intensive program since 2004. In 2003, Sergio Trombetta, the dance critic for Danza & Danza , wrote that Johnson's premiere for the Fabbrica Europa Dance Festival, Moto-Bio: Bodies in Movement, was "a work of extraordinary interest," and the Glendale News Press reported that Johnson's work, My Breath Comes Differently, was "the best performance" in Celebrate Dance 2010. In 2008 Johnson choreographed the full-length opera L'Orfeo for the CSULB Opera Institute in collaboration with LA Opera director, Thor Steingraber, and has also created an original interpretation of Beethoven's The Creatures of Prometheus for the New West Symphony's 2008 season. In 2009, Johnson founded Body Current Dance, a contemporary dance company based in Southern California which has enjoyed invitations from throughout Southern California. Johnson is currently an Assistant Professor in the Dance Department at California State University, Long Beach, where he teaches courses in ballet technique and composition. His writings on dance have been published in Dance International magazine and in academic journals such as Experiment and Musyka. Johnson has also presented papers at international conferences, such as CORD. He has B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Southern California.