Leonides D. Arpon was born and raised in Israel to Filipino parents in 1981. He was introduced to dance by his parents’ employer, his Godmother and dance teacher Rosaline Subel Kassel. In 1988 he started his dance training at the Bat-Dor Dance School where he studied with Alexander Alexander, Igal Berdichevsky, Jeannette Bolding, Gil Koppel, Dalia Koshet, Sergei Lukin, Neomie Perlov as well as international guest teachers such as Paul Boos, Randy Duncan, Anne Marie Forsythe, Freddie Moore, Fredrick Earl Mosley, Jo Orlando and Tee Ross.
In 1998 Mr. Arpon joined the Bat-Dor Dance Company and worked with Luciano Cannito, Randy Duncan and Igal Perry.
Upon arriving to New York in 1999 under the mentorship of Fredrick Earl Mosley, Mr. Arpon worked with Homer Avila, Arthur Aviles, Hernando Cortez, Sean Curran, Bill T. Jones, Heidi Latsky, Mei Yin Ng, Nathan Trice, Edisa Weeks, Johannes Wieland, Kevin Wynn and currently with Armitage Gone! Dance under the direction of Karole Armitage.
He is also the recipient of the American Israeli Cultural Foundation Scholarship and the Princess Grace Award.
Mr. Arpon has taught workshops internationally at the Bat-Dor Dance School, Thelma Yalin School for the Arts, The Jerusalem Academy for Music and Dance and the Matan Institute in Israel. He also taught at the Tokyo and Osaka Schools of Music in Japan
In the U.S. Mr. Arpon was a faculty member of the Peridance School and served as an assistant and substitute teacher at the Alvin Ailey American Dance School, the Professional Performing Arts School and at Dance New Amsterdam in New York City.
Mr. Arpon took his first steps as a choreographer in 1995 in Israel where he choreographed on the Varda Shoval Dance Group and on fellow dancers whom auditioned successfully to receive the exceptional dancer certificate which permitted them to pursue their dance careers during their service in the army.
Due to government policies Mr. Arpon had to leave Israel and decided to pursue his dance and choreographic career in New York where he continued performing and presenting his works. In 2001 he presented “Sooleo,” at the Coming Together Showcase at the Merce Cunningham Theater and for The Make a Wish Foundation at the Theater of the Riverside Church. In 2002 he presented “…now that you’ve gone,” at the Blue Muse Dance Project at the Theater of the Riverside Church. In 2003 he recreated his trio “grrApes,” to 30 kids for Earl Mosley’s Project Poetry Live! at the Naugatuck Valley College in Connecticut where he later collaborated with jazz musician Don Braden in 2004 to set a work which included over 100 students who created the sets and performed as dancers, musicians and poets. In 2005 he created “Shaka,” which was performed at the Diversity of Dance Festival at the Joyce Soho and which also granted him the Queens Museum of Art Residency. In 2006 Mr. Arpon started working on “Shinka,” which he presented at the Sweat Modern Dance Series at the Debaun Auditorium in New Jersey and then created “Distance,” for the Uptown/Downtown Dance Series sponsored by the Field, the Harlem Arts Alliance and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council at Aaron Davis Hall and the Harry De Jur Playhouse. Mr. Arpon was then sponsored by PMT Productions to present an evening of his works at the Dance New Amsterdam Theater in the end of 2006.
