dancers

FIRST LOOK AT REVIEWS FOR LUBOVITCH SPRING SEASON

New York Times calls Little Rhapsodies "a fond affirmation of his male dancers' distinctive gifts"

Financial Times on Dvorak Serenade: "one of Lubovitch's big sweeping ensemble works, the sort he does best."

More opening night praise from Joel Lobenthal in The New York Sun and Elizabeth Zimmer at Metro NY

LAR LUBOVITCH DANCE COMPANY
39TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON
NYU SKIRBALL CENTER

Tonight, Friday and Saturday 8 PM
Dvorak Serenade, Little Rhapsodies,
Love's Stories
Plus Limon Dance Company in Recordare 

Click here for tickets 
Or call 212.279.4200

New York Times: "Celebrating the Propulsive Power of Music"
Quotes from Financial Times, The Sun and Metro
New York Times: "Celebrating the Propulsive Power of Music"
Andrea Mohin/The New York Times  Scott Rink and Drew Jacoby, foreground, with the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in 'Dvorak Serenade.'
Andrea Mohin/The New York Times
Scott Rink and Drew Jacoby, foreground, with the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in "Dvorak Serenade."

By Jennifer Dunning
Published: April 19, 2007

The Lar Lubovitch Dance Company is 39 this year and holding.  The company's program on Wednesday night at the Skirball Center at New York University affirmed at least one artistic belief that has guided Mr. Lubovitch's long and productive career in modern dance: the power of music to inform and propel a work.

The two world premieres on the program, keepers both, allowed Mr. Lubovitch's impressive lead dancers simply to move to music.  His new "Little Rhapsodies," set to Schumann's Symphonic Études, exquisitely performed onstage by Pedja Muzijevic, is a playfully assertive male trio in which Rasta Thomas, Jay Franke and Sean Stewart bobbed, feinted and spun through Mr. Lubovitch's trademark spiraling motion, in smoothly plotted entrances, exits and encounters.

Some jokey moments recalled Jerome Robbins in a similar mood.  But "Little Rhapsodies" is also a companion piece to Mr. Lubovitch's "Men's Stories," a fond affirmation of his male dancers' distinctive gifts and presences.

One revelation of "Little Rhapsodies" was the soft, velvet-edged way that Mr. Thomas, a guest performer, moved, even when squirreling through the understated technical challenges of this tour de force of dancing.  Mr. Lubovitch gives him introverted dance to quiet music, pointing up his inherent physical expressiveness.

Mr. Stewart also inhabits a world of his own in "Rhapsodies," but it is the glistening realm of easy, fluid perfection.  He responds to the others, but the effect is of a cool reflection on a diamond facet.

Mr. Franke is the dance's small, fervent dynamo, buzzing through the choreography with determination and compelling precision.

Mr. Lubovitch pampers his audience with the dance equivalent of a warm, lush bath in his new "Dvorak Serenade," which juxtaposes and merges two ardent lead dancers (Drew Jacoby and Scott Rink); a springy quartet (Charlaine Mei Katsuyoshi, Mr. Franke, Kate Skarpetowska and Charlie Neshyba-Hodges); and a corps of six dancers that often serves as a shifting, tidal background.

 

To read rest of review, click here.



Quotes from Financial Times, The Sun and Metro

From "Cheering for More"
Elizabeth Zimmer in Metro NY
April 19, 2007 

Opening night of his current season at NYU's Skirball Center left the audience cheering for a pro­gram including "Love's Stories" (a romp to pop tunes sung by Chicago jazz stylist Kurt Elling)... 

The new "Little Rhapsodies" might be called a trio, but it's largely three simultaneous solos, with Franke, Sean Stewart and Rasta Thomas accompanied by onstage pianist Pedja Muzijevic playing Robert Schumann's etudes.

Thomas, a pop-ballet phenom with tumbling curls, tears passion to tatters as he preens and emotes. Stewart, formerly of American Ballet Theatre, looks rigid and squeaky-clean, like a toy soldier, while Franke's open smile and energetic attack wins our hearts.

From The Financial Times
Hilary Ostiere, April 19, 2007

On Dvorak Serenade:  Scott Rink and tall, mysterious Drew Jacoby are the couple at the centre of this dance universe. In silence at first, they entwine in lyrical lifts and lunges. Totally engrossed in themselves, they are counterpoint to an ensemble that waltzes in circles around them, ebbing and flowing in continuous movement, only standing quietly to provide a background of waving arms.

Occasionally there is a brief duet but the fluidly whirling formations never stop. Wendy Winters' shimmering chiffon shifts for the women and shorts and sheer tops for the men enhance the perpetual motion of the piece. It is one of Lubovitch's big, sweeping ensemble works, the sort he does best.

From "Lubovitch the Romantic"
Joel Lobenthal in The New York Sun
April 19, 2007

On Little Rhapsodies: Lubovitch "is intrigued by the constructs of sexual identity and he wants to make pieces for men that expand and explore their personas. Little Rhapsodies is notable for its jocular posing and its re-affirmation of the way colloquial and contemporary attitudes can coexist with music of a distant era.

On Dvorak Serenade:  "Working in unison, the ensemble encompassed all different types of bodies and varieties of attack that turned its work into a humanistic statement. Though the work was performed to four movements of Dvorák's "Serenade in E Major," Mr. Lubovitch's "Dvorák Serenade" could have gone on longer.

For more of Metro NY review, click here.
For more of Financial Times review, click here.
For more of The Sun review, click here.
All links were active as of 4/19 morning, but may have since be disconnected by publications.
 


ABOUT THE LAR LUBOVITCH DANCE COMPANY

Mission:
The Lubovitch company was created to realize the artistic vision of Lar Lubovitch, one of the foremost contemporary choreographers in the United States.  The company exists: (1) to create new work; (2) to perform those works (and facilitate the performance of those works by others) both in our home base of New York City and around the world; and (3) to teach people of all ages, ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds, in order to increase awareness and appreciation of dance.

History:
Over the past 39 years, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company has gained a reputation as one of the world's leading modern dance companies and has performed in virtually every state of the US and in more than 30 foreign countries.  Lar Lubovitch has been cited by The New York Times as "one of the ten best choreographers in the world," and the company has been called a "national treasure" by Variety.  The company is primarily focused on the creation of new dances, sometimes in collaboration with other top companies.

Contact:
The Lubovitch company is located at 229 West 42nd Street, New York NY 10036.  You can reach us at (212) 221-7909 or lubovitch@aol.com.  Or visit our website at www.lubovitch.org.

Support:
Programs of the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company are funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, as well as by Altria, Atlantic Philanthropies, US Trust Company of NY, Irene Diamond Fund, Brooke Garber & Daniel Neidich Fund, Harkness Foundation for Dance, Carl Jacobs Fund, McMullan Family Foundation, Rodgers Family Foundation, Shubert Foundation, Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, A. Woodner Fund and numerous additional generous individuals, corporations and foundations.

Memberships:
The Lubovitch company is a member of Dance/USA, Dance/NYC, ART/NY and the Arts & Business Council.