Martha Graham Dance Company Announces 2019 Season Gala

The Martha Graham Dance Company will host its annual gala on Tuesday, April 9, 2019. This special gala evening will honor Barbara Cohen, a Trustee of the Martha Graham Center, for her generosity and service to the company. Proceeds from the gala support the creation of new works and preservation of Martha Graham masterpieces. The event is the nonprofit organization's largest annual fundraiser.

The evening will begin with a performance by the Martha Graham Dance Company at The Joyce Theater. The one-night-only program will feature Ekstasis, a reimagining of a sculptural Martha Graham solo from 1933 performed by special guest Aurélie Dupont, Graham classics Errand into the Maze, performed by Bessie Award winner PeiJu Chien-Pott, and Diversion of Angels, and an excerpt from Deo, a newly commissioned company work by Maxine Doyle and Bobbi Jene Smith. Dinner and dancing will follow at the Rubin Museum of Art.

Generous support provided by BNP Paribas, the 2019 Gala Sponsor Host.

Gala Committee:

LaRue and Archibald Allen, Kenneth Bloom and Abby Meiselman, Philip and Amy Blumenthal, Barbara and Rodgin Cohen, Neila Fortino, Merrie S. Frankel, Antoinette C. Gelmont, Inga and Frank Golay, Sandra Harris, Peggy Lyman Hayes, Christine Jowers and Robert Friedman, Barbara Kirk, Javier Morgado, Lorraine and John Oler, Nichole Perkins, Donald J. Rose, M.D. and Victoria Lasdon Rose, Herbert and Judith G. Schlosser, Lee L. Traub, John Vail, Inger K. Witter, Leigh A. Weaver, Kathryn White, and Hooman Yazhari.

Gala tickets are $1,000 and $2,500. For gala tables and tickets, please call (212) 229-9200 x14, or visit www.marthagraham.org/gala.

Performance-only tickets are also available and can be purchased online at www.joyce.org or by calling JOYCECHARGE at 212-242-0800.

After a career in educational publishing, Barbara Cohen has dedicated herself to volunteer work for a variety of educational and social service organizations.

Cohen chaired the Civil Support Division of the Legal Aid Society. She served the United Way of Westchester and Putnam Counties and chaired the steering committee of the Tocqueville Society. She also served on the NYU Tisch School of the Arts Parents Council, leading the annual scholarship gala. Her service led to a second career in event planning for private, corporate, and nonprofit clients.

An avid supporter of dance, drama, music, and visual arts in New York City, Cohen joined the Martha Graham Dance Company Board of Trustees in 2017. Additional trustee positions include posts with her alma mater Simmons University and the Property Council of Lyndhurst, a historic home and member of the National Historic Trust.

The EVE Project celebrates female empowerment and the hundredth anniversary of the 19th Amendment. With commissions by some of today's top choreographers and powerful masterpieces by Martha Graham, The EVE Project features works that offer an underlying statement about the power of women.

The Martha Graham Dance Company has been a leader in the development of contemporary dance since its founding in 1926. Today, the Company is embracing a new programming vision that showcases masterpieces by Graham alongside newly commissioned works by contemporary artists. With programs that unite the work of choreographers across time within a rich historical and thematic narrative, the Company is actively working to create new platforms for contemporary dance and multiple points of access for audiences.

Since its inception, the Martha Graham Dance Company has received international acclaim from audiences in more than 50 countries throughout North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The Company has performed at the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, the Paris Opera House, Covent Garden, and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as well as at the base of the Great Pyramids in Egypt and in the ancient Herod Atticus Theatre on the Acropolis in Athens. In addition, the Company has also produced several award-winning films broadcast on PBS and around the world. For more information about the Company, visit: www.marthagraham.org.