Juilliard Dances Repertory to Feature Works by Murray Louis, Paul Taylor, and William Forsythe, 4/3-7

Juilliard Dances Repertory presents repertory works by acclaimed choreographers Murray Louis, Juilliard alumnus Paul Taylor, and William Forsythe, Wednesday, April 3 - Sunday, April 7, in Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater. Juilliard dancers perform Four Brubeck Pieces by Murray Louis; Sunset by Paul Taylor; and One Flat Thing, reproduced by William Forsythe. Performances take place on Wednesday, April 3, Thursday, April 4, Friday, April 5, Saturday, April 6, at 8 PM, with a Sunday matinee on April 7 at 3 PM, in Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater.

Four Brubeck Pieces (1984), choreographed by Murray Louis with music by Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond, is staged by Alberto Del Saz with assistance from Janis Brenner. The music, which will be performed live with musicians from Juilliard Jazz, features Dave Brubeck's Unsquare Dance, Koto Song, and Three to Get Ready, and Paul Desmond's Take Five. The quartet for the performances features Juilliard Jazz musicians, tenor saxophonist Dean Tsur, pianist Mathis Picard, bassist Luke Sellick, and drummer Andrew Wangemann. The premiere of the Four Brubeck Pieces took place in 1984 at New York City Center with the Murray Louis Dance Company and the Dave Brubeck Quartet.

Sunset (1983), choreographed by Paul Taylor with music by Edward Elgar, will be staged by Linda Kent. The music will be performed by the Juilliard Orchestra with conductor George Stelluto. They perform Edward Elgar's Serenade for Strings and Elegy for Strings (with recorded loon calls). Sets and costumes are by Alex Katz, and lighting is by Jennifer Tipton.

One Flat Thing, reproduced (2000), choreographed by William Forsythe features music by Thom Willems and is staged by Christopher Roman. The electronic score will be performed live by Caley Monahon-Ward.

Tickets at $30 will be available beginning February 27 at the Janet and Leonard Kramer Box Office at Juilliard (155 West 65th Street, Street Level). Box Office hours are Monday through Friday from 11 AM to 6 PM. For further information, call (212) 769-7406 or go to events.juilliard.edu.

William Forsythe is recognized as one of the world's foremost choreographers. His work is acknowledged for reorienting the practice of ballet from its identification with classical repertoire to a dynamic 21st-century art form. Forsythe's deep interest in the fundamental principles of organization has led him to produce a wide range of projects including installations, films, and Web-based knowledge creation. Born and raised in New York and initially trained in Florida with Nolan Dingman and Christa Long, Forsythe danced with the Joffrey Ballet and later the Stuttgart Ballet, where he was appointed Resident Choreographer in 1976. Over the next seven years, he created new works for the Stuttgart ensemble and ballet companies in Munich, The Hague, London, Basel, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Paris, New York, and San Francisco. In 1984, he began a 20-year tenure as director of the Ballet Frankfurt. After the closure of the Ballet Frankfurt in 2004, Forsythe established a new, more independent ensemble. The Forsythe Company, founded with the support of the states of Saxony and Hesse, the Cities of Dresden and Frankfurt am Main, and private sponsors, is based in Dresden and Frankfurt am Main, and maintains an extensive international touring schedule. Awards received by Forsythe and his ensembles include the New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award (1988, 1998, 2004, 2007) and London's Laurence Olivier Award (1992, 1999, 2009). Forsythe has been honored with the title of Chevalier des Arts et Lettres (1999) by the Government of France and has received the German Distinguished Service Cross (1997), the Wexner Prize (2002), the Golden Lion (2010), and the Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement (2012). He has been commissioned to produce architectural and performance installations by Daniel Libeskind, ARTANGEL (London), Creative Time (New York), and the City of Paris. As an educator, he is regularly invited to lecture and give workshops at universities and cultural institutions. He holds an honorary doctorate from Juilliard, and he is an Honorary Fellow at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance in London. He also is a current A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University (2009-2015).

Murray Louis is known throughout the world not only as one of the great male dancers, but also as a uniquely gifted choreographer, teacher, and eloquent spokesman for the art of dance. Louis' reputation as a master of the language of dance grew as he developed an eclectic, poetic, and skillfully articulate choreographic style. He has created more than 100 works, toured five continents, and performed in every state in the United States. A variety of composers have created music for him. In addition, he has choreographed to the music of Bach, Brahms, Schubert, Stravinsky, and Tchaikovsky, amongst others. He has choreographed for the Royal Danish Ballet, the José Limón Company, the Hamburg Opera Ballet, the Scottish Ballet, the Berlin Opera Ballet, the Cleveland Ballet, and for smaller companies in the United States and Canada. Born in Brooklyn in 1926, Murray Louis grew up in Manhattan, not far from Henry Street where his company was to be founded years later. After he was discharged from the U.S. Navy in 1946, Louis, then a San Francisco resident, turned his attention to dance. He enrolled in Colorado College's summer session conducted by Hanya Holm. It was there that he met Alwin Nikolais, who would become the single most important influence on his career. He returned to New York in 1949. While earning a Dramatic Arts degree at NYU, Louis attended a class with Nikolais at Henry Street Playhouse. That same year, Louis made his debut as lead soloist in Mr. Nikolais' newly-formed Playhouse Dance Company (later renamed the Nikolas Dance Theater). In 1951, he was appointed associate director to Nikolais, and became a driving force in the evolution of the aesthetic and pedagogic theory, which today is known as the Nikolais/Louis technique. The Murray Louis Dance Company was founded in 1953. The Company has established itself as a major force in the world of dance. Louis' collection of essays, Inside Dance, was published by St. Martin's Press. Mr. Louis' five-part film series, Dances as an Art Form, has become a standard introduction for Educational Arts programs in the United States. Louis is the recipient of honorary degrees from Ohio University, Rutgers University, Boston University, and Shenandoah University.

Choreographer and Juilliard alumnus Paul Taylor is the last living member of the pantheon that created America's indigenous art of modern dance. At an age when most artists' best work is behind them, Taylor continues to win public and critical acclaim for the vibrancy, relevance, and power of his creations. As he has since his origins as a dance maker in 1954, he offers cogent observations on life's complexities while tackling some of society's thorniest issues. While he may propel his dancers through space for the sheer beauty of it, he more frequently uses them to illuminate such profound issues as war, piety, spirituality, sexuality, morality, and mortality. Paul Taylor was born on July 29, 1930 - exactly nine months after the stock market crash that resulted in the Great Depression - and grew up in and around Washington, D.C. He attended Syracuse University on a swimming scholarship in the late 1940s until he discovered dance, and he transferred to Juilliard. In 1954, he assembled a small company of dancers and began to choreograph. A commanding performer despite his late start in dance, he joined the Martha Graham Dance Company in 1955 for the first of seven seasons as soloist while continuing to choreograph on his own troupe. In 1959, he was invited to be a guest artist with New York City Ballet, where Balanchine created the Episodes solo for hiM. Taylor has made 138 dances since 1954, many of which have attained iconic status. He has received nearly every important honor given to artists in the United States. In 1992, he was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors and received an Emmy Award for Speaking in Tongues, produced by WNET/New York the previous year. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Clinton in 1993. He holds many honorary degrees, including one from Juilliard (honorary doctor of fine arts). Awards for lifetime achievement include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award. In 1989, he was elected one of ten honorary American members of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Having been elected to knighthood by the French Government as Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1969 and elevated to the Officier in 1984 and Commandeur in 1990, Taylor was awarded France's highest honor, the Légion d'Honneur, for exceptional contributions to French culture, in 2000. Taylor's dances are performed by the Paul Taylor Dance Company, the six-member Paul Taylor 2 Dance Company (begun in 1993), and companies throughout the world. He remains among the most-sought after choreographers working today, commissioned by presenting organizations the world over.

The Juilliard Dance Division, now in its 61st season, 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 director of the Juilliard Dance Division in July 2002. During his more than ten years 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 company in the United States and abroad, and they also are among the directors and administrators of respected companies worldwide.

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, Jessica Lang, Lar Lubovitch, Bruce Marks, Susan Marshall, Austin Mccormick,
Andrea Miller, Ohad Naharin, and Paul Taylor.

Juilliard Dances Repertory

Program features works from the repertory:

Four Brubeck Pieces (1984) choreographed by Murray Louis with music by Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond, staged by Alberto Del Saz with assistance from Janis Brenner

Sunset (1983) choreographed by Paul Taylor with music by Edward Elgar, staged by Linda Kent, with costumes and sets by Alex Katz, and lighting by Jennifer Tipton

One Flat Thing, reproduced (2000) choreographed by William Forsythe with music by Thom Willems, staged by Christopher Roman

Performances:
Wednesday, April 3, 8 PM
Thursday, April 4, 8 PM
Friday, April 5, 8 PM
Saturday, April 6, 8 PM
Sunday, April 7, 3 PM

Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater (155 West 65th Street, NYC)
Tickets at $30 will be available beginning February 27 at the Janet and Leonard Kramer Box Office at Juilliard (155 West 65th Street, Street Level). Box Office hours are Monday through Friday from 11 AM to 6 PM. For further information, call (212) 769-7406 or go to events.juilliard.edu.