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

Lorin Johnson began his training with Richard Gibson at the Pacifica 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 and the Pacific Northwest Ballet.

Johnson began his teaching career in New York at the Westchester Dance Theatre before accepting a position at the University of California, Irvine. Since 1996, Johnson has been on the faculty of such institutions as: the California Institute of the Arts; California State University, Long Beach; 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 and he is an ABT Certified Teacher.

In 2005, Johnson was the Director of the Ballet Pacifica Academy, where he directed Ballet Pacifica's 2005 performances of The Nutcracker, featuring the American Ballet Theatre Studio Company.

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, Festival Ballet Theatre, and Ballet Pacifica as well as for the Orange County High School of the Arts (OCHSA). He is also a frequent choreographer for the American Ballet Theatre Summer Intensive program. 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 Monteverdi’s opera “L’Orfeo,” directed by LA Opera Director Thor Steingraber.

In addition to teaching and choreographing, Johnson has also published several articles on dance history in scholarly journals, a result of his extensive research in Russia. In 2003, he presented a lecture on Russian avant-garde dance reconstructions in Palaia, Italy for the "Palaia Dance Project" symposium on dance. He is a frequent lecturer of dance history for the American Ballet Theatre Summer Intensive program.
Johnson has both B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Southern California.