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| SEPTEMBER 30, 2008 |
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS! |
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CELEBRATION CULMINATES IN PERFORMANCES AT CITY CENTER, NOVEMBER 5-9
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Jay Franke, Rasta Thomas and Sean Stewart
in Little Rhapsodies. Photo: Nan Melville.
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BEST SEATS AVAILABLE NOW!
Just a month from now, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company will land on the stage of City Center for a run of 6 performances, celebrating the company’s 40th anniversary. The engagement will feature 3 City Center premieres and 4 major revivals.
Tickets for all performances at City Center are available online at www.citycenter.org or by calling CityTix at 212-581-1212. Early birds can secure the best seating in the house by purchasing now, before the citywide advertising campaign begins next week.
The company will present 3 City Center premieres – Jangle (2008), being shown for the first time with its full production, Dvorak Serenade (2007) and Little Rhapsodies (2007). The performances at City Center will also include 4 major revivals from all 40 years of the company – Whirligogs (1969), North Star (1978), Men’s Stories (2000) and Concerto Six Twenty-Two (1986), the masterwork that was instantly hailed as one of the greatest dances of its era. The dances will be mixed and matched in 3 different programs. Visit the City Center website www.citycenter.org for more details.
For Little Rhapsodies, the company will be joined by guest artist Rasta Thomas, as well as by pianist Pedja Muzijevic. Students from the class of 2009 of The Juilliard School (Lar’s alma mater) will be featured in Whirligogs and North Star.
On November 5 – the day after the presidential election – the company will celebrate its 40th anniversary with a special Gala. Following the performance, Lar and the company will join Gala patrons at the University Club for a splendid dinner. For more information about the Gala evening, please contact the office directly at 212.221.7909 or Lubovitch@aol.com.
In the weeks ahead, our E-News will feature additional stories about the upcoming week-long engagement at City Center. In the meantime, be sure to secure your tickets now by calling CityTix at 212-581-1212, or visit www.citycenter.org.
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Click to purchase your tickets for City Center performances now.
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THIS WEEK'S PERFORMANCES AT DTW AUGMENT AND PRECEDE CITY CENTER SEASON
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Nancy Colahan, Christine Wright, Rob Besserer in Cavalcade.
Photo: Lois Greenfield. |
REVISIT LUBOVITCH’S SEMINAL WORKS OF THE 1970s.
In 1968 Lar established the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company. The following year he adapted a space at 219 West 19th Street for dance performances and presented performances of the company there in 1969 and 1970. During the decade of the 70’s, Dance Theater Workshop (which had been founded in 1965) moved into this very space – where Lubovitch had first created a theater – while Lubovitch went on to break new ground, by creating the first dances to Minimalist music.
He explored the kinetic potential of Minimalist music in a series of six dances set to compositions by Steve Reich and Philip Glass. His mastery changed how choreography relates to its musical score, and confirmed Lar as a visionary in modern dance.
Now, on the occasion of the Lubovitch company’s 40th anniversary in 2008, and in honor of the long connection between Lubovitch and DTW, the Lubovitch company has reconstructed three of Lar’s seminal dances to Minimalist music.
Audiences will have the opportunity to discover three early but seminal Lubovitch dances from the 1970s when the company gives four performances at Dance Theater Workshop this week. Featured on the program will be Marimba (1976), North Star (1978) and Cavalcade (1980). North Star will be performed by an ensemble of dancers from the class of 2009 of The Juilliard School.
This week-long retrospective – which also provides a preview of the company’s larger City Center celebration – begins tomorrow and continues through October 4. Tickets may be purchased online at www.dancetheaterworkshop.org by calling the DTW Ticket Office at 212-924-0077.
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Click to purchase your tickets for DTW performances now.
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LUBOVITCH’S LONG RELATIONSHIP WITH THE JUILLIARD SCHOOL HIGHLIGHTED
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Lar Lubovitch in the 1960's.
Photo: Jack Mitchell |
As part of the Lubovitch company’s 40th anniversary season, Lar is putting center stage his long-time association with The Juilliard School.
Lar’s connection with The Juilliard School began in the 1960s, when he decided – virtually overnight – to drop his art studies at the University of Iowa and become a choreographer. The catalyzing event was a performance of The Moor’s Pavane by the Jose Limon Dance Company at the University of Iowa. Never having taken a dance class, Lar nonetheless auditioned for – and was accepted as a transfer student by – Juilliard, where he studied with Martha Graham, Anthony Tudor, Anna Sokolow, and Jose Limon himself.
Early in his career, Lar danced with the Harkness Ballet along side Larry Rhodes, who is now (40-some years later) the director of Juilliard’s dance department. Over the years, Lar has recruited many of his celebrated dancers from Juilliard, and he has often returned to the Juilliard studios in order to teach and set his works on the students there.
This year, Lar is celebrating his long-standing association with a gift to the school – the Lubovitch company (and alumni Peggy Baker and John Dayger) have set Whirligogs and North Star on the students from the class of 2009 and have invited the students to perform those two dances on the company’s programs at both Dance Theater Workshop and City Center.
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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 40 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 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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