Lionel Popkin appointed associate dean of academic affairs
UCLA professor Lionel Popkin has accepted the position of associate dean, academic affairs for the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, effective July 1, 2021. Popkin, a choreographer and performer who has served on the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance faculty since 2006, succeeds Victoria Marks, whose excellent leadership has guided academic affairs for the school for the past four years.
Popkin brings a wealth of experience at the departmental and schoolwide level. He served as chair of the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance from 2015 to 2018. In the past year, he has played an important role as a member of the school’s Anti-racism, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Commission, addressing issues that are important to him personally and that are central to his practice. Popkin was born and raised in Indiana to an Indian mother and a Jewish father. His work questions how bodies, objects, and media are allowed to exist in time and space. His research and teaching focus on choreography, improvisation, hybridity, multi-disciplinarity, and cultural and artistic lineage.
Lionel Popkin, Six Positions on Uncertainty, 2020. Video still. Courtesy of the artist.
"What excites me about the School of the Arts and Architecture is the confluence of people who question the ways bodies occupy, construct and express their experience of concrete and virtual spaces. I look forward to continuing and furthering the work done by my predecessors and the AEDI Commission I was honored to serve on last year, to integrate issues of social justice into the core of the school’s structure,” Popkin said.
Some of his recent and upcoming work includes “Orientation Event,” a durational performance unpacking the history of interculturalism within the nearly 30-year archive of his dance-making commissioned by REDCAT in LA, Dance Place in DC, and the National Performance Network’s Creation Fund; the performance piece “Six Positions of Uncertainty,” as part of the 18th Street Arts Center’s “LEFT/ RIGHT/ HERE: A Drive-through Outdoor Art Experience” on July 10; and his work in the collective SAEDA, which fosters a space for diasporic dance artists of South Asian descent.
Popkin has completed numerous commissions for notable dance companies and, early in his career, performed as a dancer in the companies of Stephanie Skura, Terry Creach, and Trisha Brown. He has received grants from the National Performance Network’s Creation Fund, the National Dance Project Touring Subsidy, the Center for Cultural Innovation, the Puffin Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and the Durfee Foundation. He is a certified teacher of Skinner Releasing Technique at the Introductory and Ongoing levels and a resident artist at the 18th Street Arts Center.
Prior to joining UCLA, he served on the faculty of Bates College, London's Laban Centre, Sarah Lawrence College, Temple University and the University of Maryland. He holds an M.F.A. from Bennington College and a B.A. with high honors from Oberlin College.
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