dancers

News and reviews from the company:

Tickets still available for celebration on Nov. 14!

Join Lar Lubovitch for the New York Premiere of "Recordare"
"Meadow" a big hit with The New York Times

For information about benefit tickets, contact Dan Feinstein at the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company: 212.221.7909.

Join Lar Lubovitch for the New York Premiere of "Recordare"
dancers

A very limited number of tickets are still available for the 2006 fall benefit of the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, featuring the New York premiere of Recordare as performed by the Limón Dance Company.  Lubovitch created Recordare in 2005 to celebrate the Mexican heritage of his fellow choreographer and long-time friend José Limón.  The work, based on the Mexican "Day of the Dead" celebration, has attracted great critical praise.  At the time of the world premiere in Boston last October, The Boston Globe described Recordare as "vibrant, colorful and irreverent," while The Washington Post greeted its D.C. debut by calling the work "boisterous yet ultimately softhearted... tart and swift...a tender tribute to the balm of religious salvation."

Come celebrate Recordare's New York premiere with Lar Lubovitch himself, as well as with other company supporters, on opening night of the Limón Dance Company's season at the Joyce Theater, next Tuesday, November 14.  The celebration that night includes the 7:30 performance, immediately followed by a reception with champagne and desserts.  "Friend" tickets are available for $250 each (and $190 of that is tax-deductible).

"Patron" tickets are available for $500 each ($370 tax-deductible), and "Benefactor" tickets are available for $1000 each ($870 tax-deductible).  Patron and Benefactor tickets also include a special post-performance dinner at Sueños, the top-ranked Chelsea restaurant featuring innovative Mexican cuisine by acclaimed chef Sue Torres.  For more information on the benefit or to order your tickets, please contact Dan Feinstein at Lar Lubovitch Dance Company.

"Meadow" a big hit with The New York Times
dancers

The revival of Lar Lubovitch's Meadow proved to be one of the highlights of American Ballet Theatre's recent engagement at New York City Center.  In The New York Times, chief dance critic John Rockwell wrote that "American Ballet Theatre has done itself and audiences a favor by bringing back Lar Lubovitch's "Meadow," first seen almost exactly seven years ago..."

Here is the text of the entire review:

DANCE REVIEW | AMERICAN BALLET THEATER

Shades of a Temple Frieze in Dreamy, Exotic Rituals
By JOHN ROCKWELL
Published: October 30, 2006

American Ballet Theater has done itself and its audiences a favor by bringing back Lar Lubovitch's "Meadow," first seen almost exactly seven years ago, also with Ballet Theater at City Center.

"Meadow" is a fluid, lyrical ballet with exotic ritual overtones, a clever score and, an end that...is pretty striking.

The ballet consists of five couples and a central pair; the couples occupy the first part, the lead pair the second and everyone the third. They all float in a foggy dream world behind a scrim. Everyone except the central woman is dressed in blue bottoms and flesh-colored tops with subtle tribal markings. The woman is in a nude unitard.

The 10 corps members flow together sensuously. The central couple spends the second part in iconic poses, as on temple friezes, mostly consisting of the man lifting the woman in hieratic positions. In the third part, the main couple act more like a duo, the man transcending his stoic role as partner. At the end, though, he holds her in another frozen pose, and then, aided by wires and dim lighting, she rises slowly from his arms.

The music for all this is ingenious in two ways. Its seemingly disparate composers (Schubert, William David Brohn, Gavin Bryars and Busoni) make an organic whole, seductive and poetic. And the blend of live and recorded music - a recorded Schubert chorus ("Die Nacht" or "The Night") combined with Mr. Brohn's acerbic live string-orchestra commentary; the Bryars recorded; the Busoni live - is successfully integrated, even if the Schubert was too loud.

Stella Abrera, sensuously statuesque, and the noble David Hallberg were the central couple, and David LaMarche conducted.

The program began with Jorma Elo's "Glow - Stop," previously reviewed, and continued with Agnes de Mille's ever-popular "Rodeo." Last fall Erica Cornejo was a huge hit as the Cowgirl, but she has decamped to join her husband, Carlos Molina, at Boston Ballet. In her place was Xiomara Reyes.
She was sweet, but she lacked Ms. Cornejo's comic command. Ms. Cornejo could balance the cartoonish tomboy with vulnerability. Ms. Reyes, though coached by the same former Cowgirl who had coached Ms. Cornejo, Christine Sarry, too often lapsed into shtick.

Isaac Stappas and Jennifer Alexander repeated their roles from last year as the Head Wrangler and the Ranch Owner's Daughter, while Sascha Radetsky replaced Craig Salstein as the Champion Roper who finally wins the Cowgirl's heart. Mr. Radetsky was fine, but he couldn't quite match Mr. Salstein's blend of bravado and innocence, or his snappy tap dance in cowboy boots. Charles Barker was the new conductor of Copland's folksy music, replacing Mr. LaMarche.


Lar Lubovitch Dance Company 
 
The Lar Lubovitch Dance Company was founded in 1968.  Over the past 38 years it has gained an international reputation as one of the world's best dance companies.  Celebrated for both its choreographic excellence and for its unsurpassed dancing, the company has created more than 100 new dances and performed before millions of people in virtually every state of America, as well as in more than 30 foreign countries.

A few highlights of the company's activities for 2006-07 include:
     CREATING three new dances (Little Rhapsodies, Cryptoglyph and a 3rd as-yet-unnamed work);
     PERFORMING the NY preview of Little Rhapsodies (part of a larger work in process) at Cedar Lake Theater on December 11, 2006, and staging the company's 39th anniversary NYC season (including the world premiere of an as-yet-unnamed new work) at the 900-seat Skirball Center from April 17--22, 2007; and
     TEACHING six of its famous dances to other top professional companies (such as ABT and Limon), in addition to continuing its acclaimed on-going educational programs -- including Lar's Dance Your Dreams and Open Doors -- for talented but underserved children in public high schools throughout all 5 boroughs of New York City.

Board of the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company
Katherine M. Bristor, President
Richard J. Caples
Thomas C. Clark, President Emeritus
Ruta Jureviciute
Virginia Kinzey, Secretary
Kenneth F. Koen
Lar Lubovitch
W. Patrick McMullan III, Treasurer
Maxine Pollak, Vice President
Dale L. Ponikvar, Vice President
Jeffery Sholeen
Beth D. Tractenberg

In Memorium
Michele G. Falkow


Honorary Committee for Fall 2006 Benefit
 
F. Murray Abraham                               Michael M. Kaiser
Theodore S. Bartwink                            Paul Labrecque
Mikhail Baryshnikov                              Carla Maxwell
Dave Brubeck                                       Kevin McKenzie
Dick Button                                          Terrence McNally
Cora Cahan & Bernard Gersten               Judith & Samuel Peabody
Mihail Chemiakin                                  Bernadette Peters
Constantin Costa-Gavras                       Martha Roth & Bill Irwin
Robin Cousins, MBE                              JoJo Starbuck
Dorothy Hamill                                     Violette Verdy
 
For more info on the Lubovitch company's fall special events, please call 212.221.7909, or email Feinstein@lubovitch.org, or visit us on-line at www.lubovitch.org.

PHOTO CREDITS:
-- Ryoko Kudo in Lubovitch's Recordare.  Photo © Rosalie O'Connor.
Courtesy of Limón Dance Company.
-- Stella Abrera and David Hallberg in Lubovitch's Meadow.  Photo © Erin Baiano.
Courtesy of photographer.
 
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 Lubovtich 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.