Juilliard Dance's 2014-15 Season to Feature Works by Austin McCormick, Loni Landon & More

Juilliard Dance, under the direction of Lawrence Rhodes, opens its 2014-15 season in December 2014 with New Dances: Edition 2014 featuring four world premiere dances by innovative choreographers, Juilliard alumnus Austin McCormick (1st-Year Dancers); alumna Loni Landon (2nd-Year Dancers); Kate Weare (3rd-Year Dancers); and Larry Keigwin (4th-Year Dancers). Mr. Keigwin is returning to Juilliard where he already choreographed and premiered, in December 2008, Runaway, a large-scale piece that riffs on the high fashion runway scene, and in December 2009, Megalopolis.

New Dances: Edition 2014 performances take place on Wednesday, December 10; Thursday, December 11; Friday, December 12; and Saturday, December 13 at 8 PM; and Sunday, December 14 at 3 PM in Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater.

Tickets are $30; $15 for seniors/students, and will be available in the month prior to the performances online at http://www.juilliard.edu/newdances or at the Janet and Leonard Kramer Box Office at Juilliard. For further information, call (212) 769-7406.

Austin McCormick is founder and artistic director of Company XIV; his works have been presented at The Kennedy Center, La MaMa, Symphony Space, The Flea, Alvin Ailey Theater, Mark Morris Dance Center, and internationally in London, Scotland, Montreal, and Mexico. He was the winner of the 2011 Robert L.B. Tobin Director-Designer Grant from Opera America for new directors in opera for the premiere of John Adams' A Flowering Tree. He also was winner of the 2010 New York Innovative Theater Award for Outstanding Choreography for Le Serpent Rouge. Mr. McCormick was the first winner of the Susan Braun Grant Award from Dance Films Association, and his films have toured internationally to Amsterdam, London, Budapest, Latvia, and France. The short film, Folies D'Espagne, for which he created choreography, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Dance on Camera Festival at Lincoln Center.

Mr. McCormick holds a bachelor of fine arts degree (2006) from Juilliard and is a graduate of the Conservatory of Baroque Dance. He is an alumnus of the Harid Conservatory and North Carolina School of the Arts. In addition to his own choreography, he has danced professionally for the Metropolitan Opera Ballet and has taught and lectured on Baroque dance as a guest of the Korean government. He currently is pursuing his master's degree from NYU.

Loni Landon is the recipient of the 2013 Princess Grace Choreography Fellowship. She also was awarded first prize at Ballet Austin's New American Talent Competition in 2012. In 2010, she co-founded the Playground (New York City) with Gregory Dolbashian. The Playground is an open forum where professional dancers directly engage with emerging and established choreographers. Ms. Landon's original choreography has been performed at the State Theater of Munich, APAP at New York City Center, American College Dance Festival (performed by Snow College Dance Ensemble), SUNY Purchase, Jacob's Pillow, Inside/Out, Dance Gallery Festival at the Ailey Theater in NYC, DanceNOW at Joe's Pub, WestFest, Pushing Progress, HT CHEN'S New Steps Choreography Series, and Dumbo Dance Festival. As a sought-after choreographer, her work has been commissioned by Northwest Dance Project, CityDance Ensemble, Ballet X, and the New American Talent Commission from Ballet Austin.

Born and raised in New York City, Loni Landon received her training from Juilliard, The School at Jacob's Pillow, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Scholarship Program, Dance Theater of Harlem, and NYC High School of Performing Arts. Upon receiving her B.F.A. in dance from Juilliard (2005), she worked with Aszure Barton on the opening of the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Soon thereafter, she joined Ballet Theater Munich from 2005 to 2007 under the direction of Phillip Taylor. From 2007 to 2009, she joined Tanz Munich Theater under the direction of Henning Paar. During her time in Munich, she performed works by many premier European choreographers. Ms. Landon is currently a dancer at the Metropolitan Opera.

Kate Weare, artistic director of Kate Weare Company, received the Guggenheim Fellowship Award in 2014, the Mellon Foundation Award through The Joyce Theater's Fellowship Program in 2011, and the Princess Grace Fellowship for Choreography in 2009. Her most recent work for her own company, Dark Lark, was presented by Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival in 2013, marking her company's BAM debut. That same year, Ms. Weare was chosen as the inaugural artist for BAM Fisher's Artist-in-Residence Program where her company enjoyed a 5-week creative development residency. In 2013, Kate Weare's company was also selected for BAM's 2013-14 professional development program, which will culminate in Kate Weare Company's 10th anniversary season at BAM in February 2015. Previously, she has been awarded a Joyce Theater Artist-in-Residency, a Jacob's Pillow Artist-in-Residency & Project Commission, a Dance New Amsterdam Artist-in-Residency, First Prize in NYC's The A.W.A.R.D. Show, a Danspace Project Commission, a Bates Dance Festival Artist-in-Residency, a Djerassi Artist-in-Residency, a Choreographic Fellowship at The Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography and several Dance Theater Workshop Project Commissions. Most recent commissions include: Scottish Dance Theatre, Australia's Buzz Dance Theatre, Groundworks, CityDance Ensemble, Axis Dance Company, Paufve/Dance, and NYC's Paradigm.

Raised by visual artists in the San Francisco Bay Area, Kate Weare received her bachelor of fine arts degree from California Institute of the Arts and danced in Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Belgrade and Montreal before settling in New York in 2000 and founding her own company in 2005.

Larry Keigwin founded Keigwin+Company in 2003 and as artistic director, has lead the company as it has performed at theaters and dance festivals throughout New York City and across the country. In addition to his work with K+C, his work has been performed on Works & Process at the Guggenheim, at Juilliard ("New Dances"), the New York City Ballet's Choreographic Institute, and the Martha Graham Dance Company, among many others. In 2010, he staged the opening event of New York City's Fashion Week: "Fashion's Night Out: The Show," which was produced by Vogue magazine and featured more than 150 of the industry's top models. In 2011, Mr. Keigwin choreographed the new musical, Tales of the City, at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, as well as the new off-Broadway production of Rent, now running at New World Stages. He received the Joe A. Callaway Award for his choreography in Rent in 2011. He has also created Keigwin Kabaret, a fusion of modern dance, vaudeville, and burlesque, presented by the Public Theater at Joe's Pub and by Symphony Space. Mr. Keigwin is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreography Society.

Mr. Keigwin is a native New Yorker and a graduate of Hofstra University.

In the spring semester, Juilliard Dances Repertory presents repertory works by acclaimed choreographers Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. Juilliard dancers perform Martha Graham's Dark Meadow and Merce Cunningham's BIPED. The performance at Juilliard will be accompanied by live music.

Martha Graham's Dark Meadow, completed in 1946 with music of Carlos Chávez and sets by Isamu Noguchi, is one of Martha Graham's most psychological and abstract works. The work premiered on January 23, 1946 at New York's Plymouth Theater. It was commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation of the Library of Congress and originally was to premiere along with Appalachian Spring in 1944, but the composer was unable to deliver the score in time for the performance. The action of Dark Meadow centers around the three main characters - "The One Who Seeks," originally danced by Graham; "She of the Ground," and "He Who Summons"; and an intricately-danced chorus. John Martin wrote of its premiere (New York Times, January 24, 1946): "What she has done is a miracle of sheer invention, but invention not in an intellectual plane, but in the subjective level of pure intuition." The work will be staged by Juilliard faculty member Terese Capucilli, a former principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company for 26 years.

Merce Cunningham's BIPED was premiered by the Gavin Bryars Ensemble with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company on April 23, 1999 at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, CA. A shimmering dance to a mesmeric score by Gavin Bryars, BIPED is a technically intricate work involving projected artwork by Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar derived from a unique motion capture process devised in collaboration with the choreographer. Of the movement itself, Merce Cunningham has written: "The dance gives me the feeling of switching channels on the TV...The action varies from slow formal sections to rapid broken-up sequences where it is difficult to see all the complexity."

Juilliard Dances Repertory performances take place on Wednesday, March 25 at 8 PM; Thursday, March 26 at 8 PM; Friday, March 27 at 8 PM; and Saturday, March 28 at 2 PM and 8 PM in Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater.

Tickets are $30; $15 for seniors/students, and will be available a month prior to the performances online at http://www.juilliard.edu/dancesrep or at the Janet and Leonard Kramer
Box Office at Juilliard. For further information, call (212) 769-7406.

Additional events on the Juilliard Dance season include Choreographers and Composers 2014 featuring Juilliard dancers performing new works set to original music by Juilliard composers on Friday, November 21 at 5 PM and 8 PM and Saturday, November 22 at 2 PM and 8 PM in the Willson Theater; Senior Dance Production, which is produced by the senior class, on Friday, April 24 at 8 PM, Saturday, April 25 at 2 PM and 8 PM, and Sunday, April 26 at 2 PM and 8 PM in the Willson Theater; Choreographic Honors, a sampling of works by Juilliard dancers curated from workshops and performances, on Friday, May 15 at 8 PM and Saturday, May 16 at 8 PM in Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater; and the popular Senior Dance Showcase, featuring the "Class of 2015," on Monday, May 18 at 8 PM in Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater.

The Juilliard Dance Division, entering its 63rd season in 2014-15, is a groundbreaking conservatory dance program whose faculty and alumni have changed the face of dance around the world. The program was established in 1951 by William Schuman during his tenure as president of Juilliard with the guidance of founding director Martha Hill. It became the first major teaching institution to combine equal dance instruction in both contemporary and ballet techniques. Among the early dance faculty members at Juilliard were Alfred Corvino, Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, José Limón, Anna Sokolow, Antony Tudor, and Hector Zaraspe.

Ballet master and master teacher, Lawrence Rhodes, was appointed the artistic director of the Juilliard Dance Division in July 2002. Going into his 13th year as director, he has reordered the curriculum and elevated requirements for the diploma and degree programs at Juilliard. He has increased the number of performances and brought in many prominent choreographers to work with the students. Graduates of the program have gone on to perform with virtually every established contemporary and ballet dance company in the United States and abroad, and they also are among the directors and administrators of respected companies worldwide. In the 2014-15 season, there will be 99 students enrolled in Juilliard's Dance Division.

Alumni of Juilliard's Dance Division include Robert Battle, Pina Bausch, Martha Clarke, Mercedes Ellington, Robert Garland, Charlotte Griffin, Kazuko Hirabayashi, Adam Hougland, Saeko Ichinohe, Loni Landon, Jessica Lang, Lar Lubovitch, Bruce Marks, Susan Marshall, Austin McCormick, Andrea Miller, Ohad Naharin, and Paul Taylor.

Photo by Rosalie O'Connor

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