The Mission of BCD

Body Current Dance is a collective of artists dedicated to furthering the art of dance through performance, choreography and inter-disciplinary collaboration. With a strong foundation in ballet, BCD performs the creative work of its artistic director, Lorin Johnson, as well as the work of invited guests. Both a professional company and a mentorship program for aspiring young artists, BCD brings evocative contemporary dance to Southern California audiences.

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Artistic Director of BCD

Lorin Johnson began his training at the Pacific Dance Theatre in California, directed by Richard Gibson before becoming a full-scholarship student at the San Francisco Ballet School. He danced with the San Francisco Ballet from 1986-1987 before joining the American Ballet Theatre in New York in 1987 under the directorship of Mikhail Baryshnikov. Johnson danced for ABT until 1995, performing eight seasons at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York as well as on national and international tours. Johnson created original roles in ballets by such renowned choreographers as Ulysses Dove, Clark Tippet and Agnes DeMille, among others, and 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. 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 academic journals and in such magazines as Dance International. He has B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Southern California.

Described as "dynamic" and "electricfying," Johnson's choreographic work has been seen both in the US and abroad. He has been commissioned to create work for such companies as South Bay Ballet, Ventura County Ballet, and Festival Ballet Theatre, among others. His choreography has also been presented in such dance festivals as: the Fabbrica Europa Dance Festival in Florence, Italy; Celebrate Dance 2010; 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 Skidmore College in New York, and at the Orange County High School of the Arts (OCHSA) in Southern California. Johnson choreographed on the American Ballet Theatre Studio Company for the 2005 Ballet Pacifica Academy production of The Nutcracker and has choreographed for the American Ballet Theatre Summer Intensive program since 2004. In 2008 Johnson choreographed the full-length opera L'Orfeo for the CSULB Opera Institute in collaboration with LA Opera director, Thor Steingraber. He has also collaborated with the New West Symphony, choreographing Beethoven's The Creatures of Prometheus for their season at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza . Sergio Trombetta, the dance critic for Danza & Danza , wrote that Johnson's premiere for the 2003 Fabbrica Europa Dance Festival, Moto-Bio: Bodies in Movement, was “a work of extraordinary interest,” and the Glendale News Press reported that Johnson's My Breath Comes Differently was the "best performance of the evening" in Celebrate Dance 2010.


Download Lorin Johnson's resume

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Artistic Associates of BCD

Lisa Johnson: company teacher
A native Southern Californian, Mrs. Johnson began her ballet training in Long Beach at Ballet Arts Center. She went on to study under scholarship at the Marin Ballet, Cleveland Ballet, School of American Ballet and National Ballet School, Toronto. As a young dancer, she was awarded first place in the Marguerite A. Hoffman competition at UCLA and won a scholarship to the San Francisco Ballet School. After completing her senior year at the Orange County High School of the Arts, Mrs. Johnson competed with a six-member American team at the Prix de Lausanne in Switzerland, and was a semi-finalist.  She danced professionally with the Los Angeles Classical Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, Feld Ballet, Ballet Chicago and John Neumeier’s Hamburg Ballet in Germany, and was principal guest artist with the Santa Barbara Ballet and Ballet Pacifica. As a teacher in Southern California for ten years, Mrs. Johnson has been on faculty at the California State University, Fullerton, Saint Joseph Ballet, Long Beach Ballet Arts Center, Southland Ballet Academy, and Ballet Pacifica Academy. Mrs. Johnson is currently on faculty at OCHSA, the Maple Conservatory of Dance in Irvine, and is a lecturer in the Dance Department at California State University, Long Beach, teaching courses in ballet technique and pointe.

Orlando Pabotoy: director, choreographer, performer and teacher of theater
Mr. Pabotoy is currently faculty at NYU and has served on the faculty at Tisch School for the arts at NYU for over six years. He has taught at the Juilliard School, The Public Theater Summer Lab, Bard College, The Actors Center (New York), The MFA Programs at: UT Austin, USD (Old Globe),UCSD, NYU, CAL ARTS and CSULB . 
Mr. Pabotoy has performed at the following professional venues: Kirk Douglas Theater (L.A.), The Public Theater’s New York Shakespeare Festival in Central Park, New York Theater Workshop, The Metropolitan Opera House (Lincoln Center), The Old Globe (San Diego), Yale Rep and for the following companies: Ma-Yi Theater Company, IMUA Theater Company, Lake Lucille, The Flying Machine Company; Division 13 Theater Company, Pandemonium Theater Company. Some of the productions: Aufidius in Coriolanus, Puck/Lysander three productions of Midsummer Nights Dream, Azdak in Caucasian Chalk Circle, Petruchio and Grumio in The Taming of The Shrew, Prospero, Antonio and Stephano in The Tempest, Capt. Jamy and a French Lord in Henry V (with Liev Schreiber), Magno in The Romance of Magno Rubio, Genet in Jean Genet, and the Fool in King Lear. He was a cast member for the Grand Finale 365 plays/365 days Suzanne Lori-Parks for CTG in Los Angeles. His Film and Television credits Include: three Seasons on Strangers With Candy with Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris (Comedy Central), and guest starring on JAG (CBS), In the Weeds (Independent Feature), Blue Hour, The Beat (WB) and Whoopi (NBC)
Mr. Pabotoy is a recipient of: The John Houseman Award, The Fox Fellowship Grant, and a 2003 OBIE Award. Mr. Pabotoy is a member of The L.A. Doce Pares stick fighting team. He is a graduate of The Juilliard School Drama Department.

Chris Martin: photographer
Chris Martin, production assistant for David Michalek's internationally acclaimed installation Slow Dancing, was a member of American Ballet Theatre from 1986 to 1999. He danced in a wide range of classical and contemporary works in senior corps, soloist and principal roles. Among the choreographers who created works on him were Twyla Tharp, Mikhail Baryshinkov, Lar Lubovich, James Kudelka and Lynne Taylor-Corbett. In addition to working with American Ballet Theatre, Mr. Martin danced with the Miami City Ballet and The Washington Ballet. Mr. Martin trained at the North Carolina School of the Arts, School of American Ballet, Chautauqua School of Dance and with Maggie Black in New York City. His teaching resume includes the North Carolina School of the Arts, Chautauqua, Ballet Academy East, Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, St. Louis Ballet, Princeton Dance and Theater Studio, Columbia University and the University of Minnesota. Mr. Martin is also a certified American Ballet Theatre National Training Curriculum teacher.

Oleg Minin: visual artist, specialist in Russian arts
Bio coming soon
Please follow this link to see video of Oleg Minin reading Russian transrational sound poetry at the Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

Richard Cooper: composer
Rychard Cooper has an Associate of Arts degree in Audio Engineering, a Bachelor’s and a Master’s in Composition. He has twice been awarded the Don Andrus Prize in Electronic Music. He has worked as a recording engineer, producer, sound designer, and has contributed to the design and construction of many recording studios in the Los Angeles area. Rychard created the recording program for Cypress College,
where he taught classes in audio engineering and record production.
He is currently working for California State University Long Beach, where he teaches classes in Music Technology, Electronic Music, Sound Design, and Digital Media. In the spring of 2007 he created a class called Digital Ethics for the Odyssey Project. This class explored the ethics of the Internet and how the media is changing in a digital world. In addition to teaching, Rychard is also the audio engineer for the music department at CSULB. Rychard is also the head of the composition program for the California State Summer School for the Arts, a Summer-Arts school for gifted high-school students, taught on the campus of the California Institute of the Arts. Here he teaches classes in Composition, Music Theory, and Music Technology.

Photos by Gregory R. R. Crosby