Lionel Popkin makes dances that come from a deeply sensory and unabashed kinesthetic curiosity. They are characterized by a blend of humor, precision, sensuality, subtlety and raw physical power. Overall, the work is refined and detailed, yet flows with an ease and clarity, because of the intimacy and openness that permeates the dancing. While virtuosity is present, the place of entry into the work for the viewer is the inquisitiveness of the performance quality Popkin fosters, and how that is transferred, through abstract movement and fine-tuned gestures, to the audience.

Lionel has been thoroughly trained in the post-modern aesthetic, having danced in highly regarded companies for much of his career. Yet, as a choreographer, the overall structures of his dances are more indebted to his life-long interest in improvisational dance forms. Because of this aesthetic leaning, my rehearsal process is highly collaborative. He gives his dancers a clear and deep connection to the material that results in compelling images filled with open, mature, and resonant performances. He does this in order to take full advantage of the myriad of phenomenological pathways within each performer.

When making work, Lionel looks for physical metaphors within his choreographic ideas. An example of this is his recent duet, Your Hand/My Mouth, in which two dancers were frequently connected by one having their finger in the other’s mouth. This sensual, disarming, disgusting, and childish physical choice creates a compelling awkwardness for the dancers and the audience. He works this way so that he may narrow the distance between dancer and viewer, not only by formal means, but also by a directness and immediacy that asserts the pervasiveness of corporeality.

After leaving the Trisha Brown Company in 2003, Lionel devoted himself full-time to making dances and has been presented at numerous theaters including Danspace Project and Dance Theater Workshop in New York, REDCAT and Highways in Los Angeles, the Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out Stage, Sushi in San Diego and The Place in London. He is currently an Assistant Professor at UCLA and works with collaborators who are based in Berlin, Los Angeles, New York, Providence and Seattle.