California State University, Long Beach

Department of Dance

Lorin Johnson is an Assistant Professor in the department of dance at CSULB and teaches courses in ballet technique, composition, men's technique, and dance appreciation.

Lorin Johnson began his training with Richard Gibson at the Pacific Dance Center before becoming a full-scholarship student at the San Francisco Ballet School. In 1986, he joined the San Francisco Ballet under the directorship of Helgi Tomasson. In 1987 he was invited by Mikhail Baryshnikov to join the American Ballet Theatre, where he performed until 1995. At ABT, Johnson worked with such renowned choreographers as Glen Tetley, Agnes DeMille, Kenneth Macmillan, Jerome Robbins and Twyla Tharp, and he created original roles in ballets by Ulysses Dove, Clark Tippet, Baryshnikov, and DeMille, among others. He has also been a guest artist with such companies as The New York City Ballet.

Johnson began his teaching career in New York at the Westchester Dance Theatre and since 1996 has been on the faculty of such institutions as: the California Institute of the Arts; University of California, Irvine; California State University, Fullerton; the Orange County High School for the Arts; the Saint Joseph Ballet; Southland Ballet Academy; the Lauridsen Dance Centre; Jimmy DeFore Dance Foundation; and Ballet Pacifica. He has been on the faculty of the American Ballet Summer Intensive program since 2004. In 2005, Johnson was the Director of the Ballet Pacifica Academy.

In 2006, Johnson became an Assistant Professor of dance at California State University, Long Beach.

Johnson's choreographic work has been seen both in the US and abroad, and he has been commissioned to create works for such companies as South Bay Ballet, Ventura County Ballet, and Festival Ballet Theatre. His work has also been seen in such prestigious dance festivals as: The Laguna Dance Festival, directed by Jodie Gates; SOLA, directed by Regina Klenjoski; and at the Fabbrica Europa Dance Festival in Florence, Italy. He has been choreographer and teacher in Residence at such universities as Skidmore College in New York, and has been guest choreographer for the Orange County High School of the Arts (OCHSA) and Long Beach City College, as well as creating several premieres for the Dance Department at California State University, Long Beach. Johnson has choreographed five original works for the American Ballet Theatre Summer Intensive program and in 2005 choreographed on members of the ABT Studio Company for the Ballet Pacifica Academy production of The Nutcracker. In 2003, Johnson directed and choreographed an evening of dance for the annual dance festival at the Fabbrica Europa in Florence, Italy. Sergio Trombetta, the dance critic for Danza & Danza , wrote that Johnson's ballet, Moto-Bio: Bodies in Movement, was “a work of extraordinary interest.” In 2008, Johnson choreographed the full-length opera L'Orfeo for the CSULB Opera Institute in collaboration with LA Opera director, Thor Steingraber. Most recently he created an original interpretation of Beethoven'sThe Creatures of Prometheus for the New West Symphony, conducted by Boris Brott. In 2009, Johnson formed Body Current Dance, a contemporary dance company based in Southern California (http://www.bodycurrent.org).

In addition to teaching and choreographing, Johnson has also published several articles on dance history and is a frequent lecturer of dance history for the American Ballet Theatre Summer Intensive program. He is currently at work on a book on contemporary ballet pedagogy for university dance majors.
Johnson has both B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Southern California.