Parsons Dance Announces 2011 GALA Light Up Your Life 4/25

Parsons Dance and Gala Chair Linda Stocknoff announce the company's 2011 Gala, Light Up Your Life, honoring David Parsons and Howell Binkley, the founders of Parsons Dance, on Monday, April 25, 2011 at 7:30pm at Espace, 635 W. 42nd Street, NYC. The evening will begin with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres at 7:30pm, followed by a dinner, performance by Parsons Dance and Roberta Flack and awards at 8:30pm, then an after-party with dancing. The attire is festive. Tickets begin at $700 and are available by calling (212) 869-9275, by emailing gala@parsonsdance.org or online at nycharities.org/parsonsdance.

Roberta Flack will perform and will be honored with a lifetime achievement award from Parsons Dance. Ms. Flack, Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and musician, is best known for her number one singles "The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face," "Killing Me Softly with His Song," and "Feel Like Makin' Love."

PARSONS DANCE GALA COMMITTEE 2011
Co-Chairs: Froma Benerofe, Fiorenza Scholey Cohen, Vickie Morris, Barbara Rohdie

PARSONS DANCE HONORARY COMMITTEE 2011
Julie Kent & Victor Barbee, Cora Cahan, Alex Dube, The Honorable Thomas K. Duane, Lois Greenfield, Harkness Foundation for Dance Trustees- Theodore S. Bartwink, Etta Brandman & William Perlmuth, Ellsworth Kelly, The Honorable Liz Krueger, William Ivey Long, Sharon Gersten Luckman, Kevin McKenzie, Donald J. Rose, M.D., Jack Shear

Parsons Dance creates American works of extraordinary artistry that are engaging and uplifting to audiences throughout the world. It is the goal of Parsons Dance to make contemporary dance accessible to the widest possible audiences. In addition to choreography and performance, Parsons Dance positively impacts children, students, and communities through student performances, lecture-demonstrations, master classes, post-show discussions and more. Parsons Dance has a company of eleven full-time dancers and maintains a repertory of more than 70 works choreographed by David Parsons, twenty of which feature originally commissioned scores by leading composers and musicians, including Dave Matthews, Michael Gordon and Milton Nascimento. Parsons Dance has collaborated with many other leading artists, including Julie Taymor, William Ivey Long, Annie Leibovitz, Donna Karan and Alex Katz (to name a few). The New York Times called David Parsons "one of the great movers of modern dance." New York Magazine referred to him as "one of modern dance's great living dance-makers."

ABOUT PARSONS DANCE
Parsons Dance is committed to building new audiences for contemporary dance by creating American works of extraordinary artistry that are engaging and uplifting to audiences throughout the world. The company tours regionally, nationally and internationally. Since 1985, Parsons Dance has toured an average of 32 weeks per year, to a total more than 235 cities, 30 countries, six continents and millions of audience members. Many others have seen Parsons Dance on PBS, Bravo, A&E Network, and the Discovery Channel. Millions watched Parsons Dance perform live in Times Square as part of the internationally broadcast, 24-hour Millennium New Year's Eve celebration. In New York City, Parsons Dance has been featured at The Joyce Theater, City Center, New Victory Theater, Central Park Summerstage, Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art and The World Trade Center.

Parsons Dance receives support from The Cowles Charitable Trust, Ellsworth Kelly Foundation, The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, The Friars Foundation, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, the New York Community Trust, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation, Nina W. Werblow Charitable Trust, The Shubert Foundation.

For more information, visit www.parsonsdance.org.