Julliard Dance Presents NEW DANCES: EDITION 2017

Juilliard Dance, under the direction of Lawrence Rhodes, presents New Dances: Edition 2016 featuring four world-premiere dances by choreographers John Heginbotham (First-Year Dancers), Katarzyna Skarpetowska, (Second-Year Dancers), Pam Tanowitz (Third-Year Dancers), and Matthew Neenan (Fourth-Year Dancers). Heginbotham and Skarpetowska are Juilliard alums, and Tanowitz and Neenan are returning as New Dances choreographers.

New Dances: Edition 2016 performances take place Wednesday, December 7 through Saturday, December 10, at 7:30pm; and Sunday, December 11, at 3pm in Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater.

Tickets at $30 are available at events.juilliard.edu. Tickets are free for Juilliard students; non-Juilliard students may purchase tickets for $15, only at the Juilliard Box Office.

Three of the four works will feature live music performed by Juilliard musicians. John Heginbotham has set his piece to the first movement of Schubert's String Quintet in C Major, D. 956, performed by violinists Angela Wee and Max Tan, violist Jacob Van Der Sloot, and cellists Isabella Palacpac and Philip Sheegog. Katarzyna Skarpetowska's work is set to the first movement of Chopin's Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op. 65 and will be performed by cellist James Jeonghwan Kim and pianist Angie Zhang. Pam Tanowitz has set her work to Andrew Norman's The Companion Guide to Rome, a string trio in seven sections, performed by violinist George Meyer, violist Hayaka Komatsu, and cellist Issei Herr. Matthew Neenan was inspired by the music of singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright for his work, which will close the performance.

About the Choreographers for New Dances: Edition 2016

Originally from Anchorage, John Heginbotham is a Brooklyn-based choreographer, performer, and teacher. He graduated from Juilliard in 1993 with a BFA in dance and was awarded the Martha Hill Prize for sustained achievement in dance. As a member of the Mark Morris Dance Group from 1998 to 2012, he performed lead roles in several of the company's works, and he toured the United States and abroad alongside artists including Mikhail Baryshnikov, Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, The Bad Plus, and Zakir Hussain; with the company he also performed with the Metropolitan Opera, New York City and English National Opera companies. In 2014, Mr. Heginbotham was awarded the prestigious Jacob's Pillow Dance Award, and he is a two-time recipient of the Jerome Robbins Foundation New Essential Works (NEW) Fellowship (2010, 2012). With his company, Dance Heginbotham, he has been invited to participate in creative residencies at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival (2013, 2014), Baryshnikov Arts Center (2011, 2012), and the Watermill Center (2013). Live music is an integral part of his creative vision, and has led to collaborations with many new artists. His work has been presented at many venues, and he has a growing list of opera commissions. He has created and set work for many college dance programs and has taught at many institutions. Mr. Heginbotham is currently on the faculty at Princeton University and was guest director of the Dartmouth Dance Ensemble at Dartmouth College. He is also a founding teacher for PD®, an ongoing collaboration between the Mark Morris Dance Group and the Brooklyn Parkinson Group.

Katarzyna Skarpetowska, a native of Warsaw, Poland, holds a BFA in dance from Juilliard. She was a member of the Parsons Dance Company from 1999 to 2006 and performed lead roles in its repertory. From 2006 to 2008, she was a guest member of the Battleworks Dance Company, which was founded by her former Parsons Dance colleague and the present artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (A.A.A.D.T.), Robert Battle, also a Juilliard alumnus. In 2007, Ms. Skarpetowska was one of two featured dancers during the Glimmerglass Opera Festival, and in 2008, she toured Italy with Why Be Extraordinary If You Can Be Yourself, a show by Daniel Ezralow. In 2009, she co-designed and co-directed Romeo and Juliet for the Gunther Theater in Greenville, S.C. Ms. Skarpetowska worked for the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company from 2007 to 2014 (Lubovitch is also a Juilliard alumnus) performing at venues including New York's City Center, the Kennedy Center, and Moscow's Bolshoi Theater. Over the years, she has appeared as a guest artist with the Buglisi Dance Theater. She has had the privilege of working as arépétiteur and assistant choreographer to Lar Lubovitch, David Parsons, and Robert Battle, setting works on dancers from A.A.A.D.T., Introdans, Company C, Eisenhower Dance Ensemble, Oldenburgisches Staatstheater, and SUNY Purchase. Her own choreography has been performed by these and other companies including Richmond Ballet, Hubbard Street 2, Houston METdance, Big Muddy Dance Company, Owen/Cox Dance Group, MoralesDance, Periapsis Music and Dance, Ailey/Fordham, Marymount Manhattan College, George Mason University, Ohio University, Kansas University, and New Jersey Dance Theater Ensemble. Ms. Skarpetowska, a freelance teacher who holds workshops throughout the world, was named one of Dance magazine's "25 to Watch" in 2016.

Pam Tanowitz has been making dances since 1992. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2011 and the Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University in 2013-14. She is the 2016 Bessie Juried Awardee. Ms. Tanowitz has been invited to create new work for the Vail International Dance Festival and City Center's Fall for Dance Festival; has set work on Ballet Austin, New York Theater Ballet and Saint Louis Ballet; and has been a guest choreographer in the dance departments at Barnard College, Princeton University, Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, Marymount Manhattan College And Purchase College. Additional awards include three Joyce Theater ResidenCy Grants, Jerome Robbins Foundation, and Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Grants to Artists Award. She holds dance degrees from Ohio State University and Sarah Lawrence College.

Matthew Neenan began his dance training at the Boston Ballet School and with noted teachers Nan C. Keating and Jacqueline Cronsberg. He later attended LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts and the School of American Ballet in New York. From 1994 to 2007, he danced with the Pennsylvania Ballet where he danced principal roles in works by George Balanchine, John Cranko, Paul Taylor, Peter Martins, Val Caniparoli, Jorma Elo, Lila York, Meredith Rainey, Christopher Wheeldon, and Jerome Robbins, and where he was choreographer-in-residence in 2007. His choreography has been featured and performed by the Pennsylvania Ballet, BalletX, Washington Ballet, Colorado Ballet, Ballet West, Ballet Memphis, Milwaukee Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Tulsa Ballet, Ballet Met, Oklahoma City Ballet, Juilliard Dance, New York City Ballet's Choreographic Institute, Sacramento Ballet, Nevada Ballet Theatre, Indiana University, Opera Philadelphia, and LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts, among others. He has received numerous awards and grants for his choreography from the National Endowment for the Arts, Dance Advance funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Choo San Goh Foundation, and the Independence Foundation. In 2006, Mr. Neenan received the New York City Ballet's Choreographic Institute's Fellowship Initiative Award. His Carmina Burana, As It's Going, and 11:11 have been performed by the Pennsylvania Ballet at New York City Center. In 2008, he received his fourth fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and in October 2009, he was the grand-prize winner of Sacramento Ballet's Capital Choreography Competition and also the first recipient of the Jerome Robbins NEW Program Fellowship (for his work At the Border for Pennsylvania Ballet). In 2005, he co-founded Ballet X with fellow dancer Christine Cox. Ballet X is now the resident Dance Company at the prestigious Wilma Theatre. In 2010, Mr. Neenan became a trustee of DanceUSA.

About Juilliard's Dance Division and Lawrence Rhodes, Artistic Director of Juilliard Dance

The Juilliard Dance Division, now in its 65th 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, making Juilliard the first major teaching institution to combine equal dance instruction in 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 Héctor Zaraspe.

Ballet master and master teacher, Lawrence Rhodes, was appointed the artistic director of the Juilliard Dance Division in 2002. Now in his 15th 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.

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.

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Program Listing:

Juilliard Dance Presents

New Dances: Edition 2016

Four world premiere commissions choreographed by:

John Heginbotham (First-Year Dancers)

Katarzyna Skarpetowska (Second-Year Dancers)

Pam Tanowitz (Third-Year Dancers)

Matthew Neenan (Fourth-Year Dancers)

Wednesday, December 7, 7:30pm

Thursday, December 8, 7:30pm

Friday, December 9, 7:30pm

Saturday, December 10, 7:30pm

Sunday, December 11, 3pm

All performances take place in Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater.

Tickets at $30 are available at events.juilliard.edu. Tickets are free for Juilliard students; non-Juilliard students may purchase tickets for $15, only at the Juilliard Box Office.

Juilliard 2016-17 Dance Season

Calendar of Events

Choreographers and Composers 2016

Friday, November 18, 6 and 9pm

Saturday, November 19, 2 and 8pm

Juilliard's Rosemary and Meredith Willson Theater

The performances are the culmination of the long-running Juilliard classroom/studio course of the same name, which provides Juilliard dance and composition students with techniques to explore collaborative art.

Juilliard Dances Repertory

Sheer Bravado by Richard Alston

Por Vos Muero by Nacho Duato

V by Mark Morris

March 22, 23, 24, and 25, at 7:30pm

March 25, at 2pm

All performances take place in Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater.

Tickets are $30 and will be available at events.juilliard.edu. Tickets are free for Juilliard students; non-Juilliard students may purchase tickets for $15, only at the Juilliard Box Office.

Senior Dance Production 2017

Friday, April 21, at 8pm

Saturday, April 22, at 2:30 and 8pm

Sunday, April 23, at 2:30 and 8pm

Juilliard's Rosemary and Meredith Willson Theater

Senior Dance Production is the culmination of a year-long creative and educational process focused on launching seniors into the professional world. Juilliard dancers work in close collaboration with lighting design teams, costume designers, and composers as they create their original works.

Ticketing information to follow.

Choreographic Honors

Friday, May 12, at 7:30pm

Saturday, May 13, at 7:30pm

Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater

A sampling of works curated from workshops and performances by Juilliard Dance Division students throughout the year.

Free; tickets are required.

Senior Dance Showcase

Monday, May 15, at 7:30pm

Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater

Juilliard Dance's "class of 2017" presents a diverse program of solos and duets from the repertory and created by alumni and commissioned choreographers.

(Photo Credit: Rosalie O'Connor)