Lorin Johnson

Lorin Johnson began his training at the Pacific Dance Theatre with Richard Gibson before becoming a full-scholarship student at the San Francisco Ballet School. He danced with the San Francisco Ballet under the directorship of Helgi Tomasson from 1986-1987 before joining the American Ballet Theatre in New York in 1987 under the directorship of Mikhail Baryshnikov. Johnson performed at ABT until 1995, including dancing eight seasons at the Metropolitan Opera House and creating original roles in ballets by Ulysses Dove, Clark Tippet and Agnes DeMille, among others. He has worked with some of the 20th century’s most influential choreographers, including Glen Tetley, Kenneth Macmillan, Twyla Tharp, and Jerome Robbins. He has also performed as a guest artist with such companies as The New York City Ballet, the Pacific Northwest Ballet and The National Dance Theatre of Bermuda. Johnson has taught in many universities and schools in Southern California, including the California Institute of the Arts and the University of California, Irvine. His choreography has been commissioned in the US and abroad, and in 2003 he choreographed and produced an evening of dance at the renowned dance festival at the Fabbrica Europa in Florence, Italy. Johnson has been on faculty of the American Ballet Theatre Summer Intensives program since 2004, where he teaches, stages ballets from ABT’s repertoire and choreographs new works. In 2005 Johnson was the Academy Director of the Ballet Pacifica Academy and in 2006 became an Assistant Professor of Dance at California State University, Long Beach, where he teaches courses in ballet technique, dance appreciation and history. Johnson has published several articles as a result of his extensive research in Moscow, Russia and has both B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Southern California.