Léonard Engel (*1987, France) is a choreographer dancer,  performer and father of 3, who lives and works between Berlin and Munich.

After graduating from the Paris Opera Ballet School, he received his first engagement at the Ballet Victor Ullate in Madrid before joining the Bavarian State Ballet in Munich for 8 years under the direction of Ivan Liska, where he performed as a soloist in classical ballet pieces as well as in works by Aszure Barton, Russell Maliphant, William Forsythe or Pina Bausch.

Since 2016 he has been working as a freelance artist, performing with Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Richard Siegal (Munich), Billinger and Schulz (Frankfurt), the theatre group Gintersdorfer/Klaßen (Berlin), Paula Rosolen (Frankfurt) and Laurent Chétouane (Berlin).

In January 2019, he creates his first choreographic piece, the solo Pavane, as part of the Tanztage Berlin at the Sophiensæle, drawing inspiration from the courtship displays of various animal species to create a new masculinity that attempts to seduce through dance, glitter and hypnotic movements.
In September 2019, his second piece, How to get rid of a body. A magic Manual is performed at HochX Theatre in Munich. Based on the strategies of animal mimicry, he creates a solo in which he faces the impossible task of making his body disappear, as his repeated attempts keeps bringing said body and its limitations at the center of attention.
In 2021, he directs a series of shorts films entitled How to get rid of a body. A video tutorial series to complement this last work.
In 2020 he is invited by choreographers Meg Stuart and Moriah Evans to participate in the project WITH as part of the German Dance Platform 2020 in Munich.
He presented his first group piece Parotia (co-produced by PACT Zollverein) at Schwere Reiter (Munich) in November 2021. With this work, Engel explores the physical and visual properties of the act of whirling.
In May 2022, he creates a gallery version of this piece at HOTO Gallery (Berlin) as part of MMpraxis curatorial platform’s “Out of the Box” programme.
In January 2023, he creates his first young audience piece, Wusch! Zak! Puf! Wie man erscheint und verschwindet (“how to appear and disappear”). The piece is inspired by the camouflage behaviour of various animal species and tells a poetic story about self-expression and acceptance.
Orchids (2024, schwere reiter, Munich), his latest piece for three performers, is an exploration of the male body freed from the gender expectations of our patriarchal society.

Engel´s pieces have been invited to Hybrid Festival (Berlin), Soundance Festival (Berlin) and Rodeo Festival (Munich). For his choreographic work he received residencies at PACT Zollverein (Essen) and Tanzfabrik Berlin.