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Get back to school with the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company!
Lar's Dance Your Dreams Featured Teacher: Jonathan Alsberry
Alsberry in Jangle. Photo: Sharen Bradford
Alsberry in Jangle. Photo: Sharen Bradford

Jonathan E. Alsberry, fondly known as “Jojo”, joined the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in 2007, and began teaching with our education program,Lar’s Dance Your Dreams, shortly thereafter. Dancing and teaching have always been connected in Jonathan's mind since his childhood growing up in Normal, IL. His mother is a dance teacher who has her own school where he began moving at a young age. Of his mother, Alsberry says, “She reeled me in, and while I was always encouraged to play sports and have other interests, dance is the thing that stuck.” Alsberry is a Juilliard alum, and prior to dancing for Lubovitch, he worked with choreographers Aszure Barton and Mikhail Baryshnikov among many others.

During last year’s 40th Anniversary Season, Jonathan performed a varied selection of Lubovitch’s repertory, including historical works from the 1970s minimalist period – Marimba and Cavalcade, critically acclaimed Men’s Stories and Concerto Six Twenty-Two, and Lubovitch’s most recent work, Jangle. His teaching incorporates the many movement qualities present in the Lubovitch aesthetic, and he finds a way to connect the students to the joy of moving. Dance teacher Ani Udovicki at Frank Sinatra School of the Arts writes in her evaluation, “Mr. Alsberry master classes were wonderful, well planned, exciting and inspiring…. his classes were not only excellent in terms of movement – technique and style – but that they were encouraging and stimulating by what he shared about the world of professional dance.” Jonathan is looking forward to another year of teaching for Lar’s Dance Your Dreams and continuing to “live as an example of the joy and freedom that dance and art have brought me.”

Lubovitch Completes Jazz Trilogy: Coltrane's Favorite Things
Rigert, Morinoue, Malone & Jimenez in Elemental Brubeck. Photo: Rose Eichenbaum
Rigert, Morinoue, Malone & Jimenez in Elemental Brubeck. Photo: Rose Eichenbaum

Lar Lubovitch and the company are entering into an exciting artistic period working on an entirely new work. The piece, entitled Coltrane’s Favorite Things, will complete Lubovitch’s series of dances investigating and re-imaging the choreographic possibilities of jazz (others being Elemental Brubeck and Nature Boy) and will be set to a recording of John Coltrane’s iconic interpretation of the Richard Rodgers song, “My Favorite Things.” The dance is being created for nine dancers. Lubovitch intends to respond to both Jackson Pollock’s paintings and to Coltrane’s jazz improvisations. Lubovitch will use the dual (and often competing) creative tools of control and chance that were likewise hallmarks of the artistry of both Pollock and Coltrane. In the dance, Lubovitch will capture the same freeness and seemingly impulsive quality embodied in both the paintings and the music. Coltrane’s Favorite Things will have a public preview at the Chicago Dancing Festival on August 22 at the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, and the world premiere performance of Coltrane’s Favorite Things will be during the company’s two-week season at the Joyce Theater in February and March 2010.

In connection with Lubovitch's current artistic influences of jazz music and abstract expressionist art, our education program will offer a special Lar's Dance Your Dreams Jazz Unit with a focus on the history and technique of jazz music and it's connection with movement and artistic improvisation. This exciting unit offers schools a chance to incorporate dance in a cross-curricular way that reaches more students...dancers and non-dancers alike. For more information about scheduling a Lar's Dance Your Dreams's Jazz Unit contact Education Director Clare Cook: 212-221-7909 or cook@lubovitch.org.


Lar's Dance Your Dreams: NYC Department of Education Approved!
Teaching artist Michael Thomas leads class.
Teaching artist Michael Thomas leads class.
The Lar Lubovitch Dance Company was recently approved and granted an official Arts Education Contract Number from the New York City Department of Education making it even easier schedule in-school or after school workshops for your students! Lar's Dance Your Dreams classes are taught by veteran company dancers and draw both on existing dances and new works under development by Lar Lubovitch. By teaching material from Lar’s dances, LDYD allows students to gain insight into Lar’s creative process and, at the same time, develop their own creativity as well. In addition to learning Lubovitch repertory, our teaching artists work with each school to develop a curriculum unique to students in the class; relevant and engaging to their interests, abilities, cultural influences, and beyond. We offer master classes and workshops of 5, 10, 26, and 36-class sessions that can be flexibly scheduled over the course of a semester according to the needs of your school. Contact Education Director Clare Cook 212-221-7909 or cook@lubovitch.org for more information.
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.

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 American Mastepieces: Dance, Irene Diamond Fund, Brooke Garber & Daniel Neidich Fund, Harkness Foundation for Dance, Joyce Theater Foundation, McMullan Family Foundation, National Dance Project, Rudolf Nureyev Dance 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, Americans for the Arts and the Arts & Business Council of New York.
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