LaMichael Leonard Jr.

Internationally recognized performing artist, choreographer, and educator with over 20 years of professional experience across concert, theater, and interdisciplinary dance practices and performances. Skilled collaborative leader with a strong foundation in performance theory, production, and pedagogy, led with empathy and respect. Highly skilled in communication, adaptability, and problem-solving within high-pressure creative environments, with a commitment to fostering inclusive, responsive, and rigorous artistic practices.

• My artistic practice explores the body as an archive of information, a tool for theatrical expression, and a means of cultural dialogue. I approach choreography and performance as a form of inquiry, investigating the relationship between form and function not as opposing forces but as collaborators in the process of questioning. My work ultimately examines the complexity of the human experience. Through choreography, I investigate how movement can serve as a way of knowing, relating, interrogating, advocating, and communicating.
• Grounded in phenomenological approaches to the lived body, particularly with attention to embodiment, perception, and sensorial awareness, I engage the body as both a subject and a site of knowledge production. Drawing from frameworks such as embodied cognition, somatics, and performance studies, I consider how memory, identity, and environment are inscribed within and expressed through the body. My work is informed by an understanding of the body not as a fixed entity, but as a dynamic, relational system shaped by cultural, social, and material conditions.
• Alongside these somatic and experiential approaches, I maintain a strong investment in codified technical practices and value a didactic approach to choreography that emphasizes rigor, repetition, and the transmission of embodied knowledge through structured forms. I am interested in the productive coexistence between somatic inquiry and codified technique, treating both as valid and necessary methodologies for cultivating strong body/mind awareness, movement clarity and precision, and expressive capacity within the performing body.
• Ultimately, my work views movement as a mode of thinking and a method of discovery. I cultivate spaces where curiosity, experimentation, and interdisciplinary dialogue can expand the possibilities of contemporary performance.

• Dance education must support a wide range of voices, bodies, and creative perspectives. Innovation, thoughtful inquiries, and equitable practices in the classroom, studio, and stage are only possible through diversity in cultures, identities, and artistic traditions. As an educator, I strive to create learning environments where students feel respected, encouraged, and empowered to explore their individual experiences through movement.
• My professional career has involved collaboration with artists from diverse cultural backgrounds across the globe. These experiences reinforced the importance of listening, adaptability, and shared authorship within creative work. I emphasize collaborative learning and open dialogue. Students are encouraged to examine the cultural contexts of dance while developing their own artistic perspectives. Supporting diverse approaches to movement and creativity, I cultivate classrooms where difference becomes a source of artistic richness rather than exclusion.
• I am committed to expanding access to dance education and supporting inclusive artistic spaces that reflect the diversity of the world we live in.

• My teaching practice is grounded in the understanding that technical training, creative inquiry, and critical reflection must evolve simultaneously to develop thoughtful contemporary dance artists.
• My professional experiences performing and creating work within internationally recognized companies—particularly through my years working with Bill T. Jones—have profoundly shaped my understanding of dance as both a physical discipline and a conceptual practice. My lifelong experience in interdisciplinary practices integrating movement, language, sound, and social inquiry reinforces the idea that dance education should prepare students to think expansively about the possibilities of performance.
• In technique classes, I emphasize alignment, breath, dynamic range, and somatic awareness. Students are encouraged to develop strength, coordination, and clarity while cultivating sensitivity to sensation, musicality, and nuance. This approach allows dancers to build resilience while maintaining expressive depth.
• In composition courses, I frame choreography as a form of artistic research. Students investigate movement through improvisation, spatial experimentation, text integration, and collaborative processes. I also encourage students to engage with multiple artistic disciplines to consider how movement interacts with visual design, sound, language, and dramaturgy. In this way, the classroom becomes a laboratory where students discover their unique artistic voices.
• Ultimately, my goal as an educator is to support the development of thoughtful, adaptable artists who are technically skilled, intellectually curious, and prepared to contribute to the evolving landscape of contemporary performance on a global scale.