Garth Fagan Dance Comes to Ebony Rep This Weekend

Ebony Repertory Theatre announced today that Garth Fagan Dance will return to Los Angeles after an absence of ten years. The company's program includes the Los Angeles premiere of excerpts from "Lighthouse/Lightning Rod," a collaboration of the company's Founder/Artistic Director Garth Fagan, Wynton Marsalis and California-based visual artist Alison Saar. "Lighthouse" opened the Brooklyn Academy of Music season in 2012. Performances at the 400-seat Nate Holden Performing Arts Center (4718 W. Washington Blvd.) in Los Angeles will run this weekend, October 3-5, 2014. For more information, visit www.ebonyrep.org.

Ebony Repertory Theatre Founder/Producer, Wren T. Brown comments, "Ebony Repertory Theatre counts it an honor and profound privilege to have our company present Garth Fagan Dance after its 10 year absence from the Southland. I have had a personal relationship with Mr. Fagan and the company for over twenty years and, through those years, I have always been deeply impacted by the humanity, dimensional artistry, grace, integrity and dignity of this brilliant collection of artists. As a true devotee of dance, I look forward to being in the audience for every performance of Garth Fagan Dance during its upcoming engagement with us at the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center."

Jamaican-born Garth Fagan is most well known for choreographing "The Lion King," for which he won both Broadway's Tony and London's Olivier awards, but his work for his company, now entering its fifth decade, has earned him titles like "trail blazer" and "one of the great reformers of modern dance."

"Lighthouse" is Fagan's first collaboration with Wynton Marsalis since their celebrated 1991 "Griot New York," which was also premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The excerpts to be performed at Nate Holden include four scenic elements by Alison Saar, who resides in Los Angeles and studied at Scripps College and Otis Art Institute.

Gia Kourlas of The New York Times described the element in the opening section as "the strangest lighthouse you might ever see: a sculpture of a woman, nearly as tall as the stage, clasping silver branches." She notes that, in spite of the symbols of safety in the title, the work "hints at danger as much as at security." Susan Reiter in Dance Magazine called the work "multi-layered and fascinating."

The program also includes the West Coast premiere of Fagan's "No Evidence of Failure," (2013) a work that honors Bessie award winner Natalie Rogers, who joined the company in 1989, left it in 2004 to raise a child and re-joined it seven years later. Deborah Jowitt writing for DanceBeat called Rogers "a mistress of controlled dynamics." The New York Times' Brian Seibert found Rogers "amazing," especially in her duet with Vitolio Jeune who is 20 years younger.

Rogers is one of a number of mature dancers whose experience enriches the company. Norwood Pennewell, who joined the company in 1978 and is also Fagan's rehearsal director/assistant, has begun to choreograph as well. His "Gin" (2013) - the title refers to the cotton gin not the liquor - has its West Coast premiere at Nate Holden. The New York Times's Brian Seibert, notes that the work has a life of its own beyond Fagan's creations and praises its "scenes of a resilience that isn't just physical" and "evidence of spiritual strength."

Each performance begins with "Prelude - Discipline is Freedom" (1981, revised 1983), the company's signature work that illuminates Fagan's style that blends the weight of modern dance, the vibrancy of Afro-Caribbean dance, the speed and precision of ballet and the risk-taking experimentation of post-modernism.

Ebony Repertory Theatre, now in its seventh year, is the resident company and operator of the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, 4718 West Washington Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90016. Performances by Garth Fagan Dance are at 8:00 p.m., Friday October 3 and Saturday October 4 with matinees at 2:00 p.m., Saturday October 4 and 3:00 p.m., Sunday, October 5. Seats are $35.00 and $25.00. Student tickets are $20.00. Tickets are available online at ebonyrep.org or by phone at 323-964-9766. Groups of 10 or more are available via email at groups@ebonyrep.org or 323-964-9766.

BIOGRAPHIES:

GARTH FAGAN - Critics have hailed Garth Fagan as a "trail blazer" and "one of the great reformers of modern dance." With an incomparable style that blends the weight of modern dance, the vibrancy of Afro-Caribbean dance, the speed and precision of ballet and the risk-taking experimentation of post-modernism, he has created more than 70 works for the theater and concert stage.

His works defy classification and range from his ground-breaking choreography for the hit musical The Lion King to Griot New York and Lighthouse/Lightning Rod, his critically acclaimed collaborations with Pulitzer-Prize-winning composer Wynton Marsalis. Although he choreographs primarily for Garth Fagan Dance, he has also created pieces for other leading companies, including Alvin Ailey American Dance, Dance Theatre of Harlem, New York City Ballet and the Limo?n Dance Company.

To date, he has received over 60 major awards and honors for his work. The Dance Heritage Coalition recently added his name to its list of 100 Irreplaceable American Dance Treasures. For his choreography of The Lion King, he has won every important award given to theater artists, including Broadway's prestigious Tony Award, London's Olivier Award and Australia's Helpmann Award.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Mr. Fagan began performing with Ivy Baxter's Jamaican National Dance Company while he was still in high school. In 1960, he came to the United States and earned a degree in psychology from Detroit's Wayne State University. He considered becoming a psychologist but instead moved to New York, where he studied with Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey and Jose? Limon, and performed with Pearl Primus and Lavania Williams.

In 1969, he was invited to join the faculty of the State University of New York at Brockport. Inspired by his work with the underprivileged students he met while teaching SUNY-affiliated classes in Rochester, he established his own company in 1970. Founded as Bottom of the Bucket But... Dance Theatre to reflect its unassuming origins, he changed the name of the company in 1991 to Garth Fagan Dance.

Now entering its fifth decade under his determined leadership, Garth Fagan Dance is an internationally acclaimed company, a school that annually provides dance training to over 450 students, and an innovative outreach program designed to serve the greater Rochester community through educational performances and dance instruction.

GARTH FAGAN DANCE - For more than four decades, Garth Fagan Dance has brought its legendary founder's groundbreaking choreography to audiences in theaters and venues of virtually every size and description across the United States and around the world.

Every year, Mr. Fagan creates one or more NEW WORKS expressly for the company, whose dancers, ranging in age from 20 to 60, have forged a reputation for unparalleled grace, skill and athleticism. In recent years, the company has also undertaken REVIVALS of his most-beloved pieces including Time After Before Place, From Before, Easter Freeway Processional, Senku, Oatka Trail, Woza and Griot New York.

Last November, the company celebrated its 25th annual NEW YORK SEASON at the Joyce Theatre. This fall, Garth Fagan Dance will premiere new works by Mr. Fagan and company member Norwood Pennewell, as well as revivals of beloved Fagan works.

In December, the dancers will return to Nazareth College Arts Center for their 44th ROCHESTER SEASON with regional premieres, hometown audience favorites, performances for young people, and family matinees featuring the school's student ensemble.

TOURING PERFORMANCES have taken the company to 530 cities in 20 countries across 6 continents. Among many highlights are tours to Africa, South America, Australia, France, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Turkey and Zimbabwe, as well as performances at the American Dance Festival, Jacob's Pillow, Spoleto, Italy and Spoleto, USA.

The company's television appearances include PBS's Great Performances, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and the 66th Annual Academy Awards. In 2012, Rochester public television aired an original, full-length documentary on the making of Lighthouse/Lightning Rod, Mr. Fagan's most recent collaboration with Pulitzer-Prize winning jazz composer Wynton Marsalis.

ALISON SAAR - Alison Saar was born in Los Angeles, California and grew up in Laurel Canyon, California. She received a BA from Scripps College, Claremont, CA in 1978, having studied African and Caribbean art. She received an MFA from Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles in 1981. Her work has been exhibited internationally with key exhibitions at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, L.A. Louver Gallery, Phyllis Kind Gallery in New York City, and Pasadena Museum of California Art. The work of Alison Saar addresses humanity in the broadest sense. Through the use of archetypal images, Saar reaches out to audiences from backgrounds as culturally and ethnically diverse as her own. Fragments of lore, myth and legend as well as the practices of the everyday, rooted in these cultural backgrounds, are woven into Saar's powerful feminine images, where contemporary expression enshrines centuries of women's spiritual evolution.

EBONY REPERTORY THEATRE (Producer) - Award winning Ebony Repertory Theatre (ERT), Los Angeles' only African American professional theatre company, (Actors Equity Contract) now in its seventh year, is the Resident Company and Operator of the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, located at 4718 W. Washington Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90016. Since 2008, ERT productions have established the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center as a hub for quality performances. ERT has produced an amazing array of plays including CROWNS, August Wilson's Two Trains Running, A Raisin In The Sun (Lorraine Hansberry), Fraternity (Jeff Stetson), and presented well known dance such as Complexions Ballet, in an intimate evening paying tribute to dance pioneer Donald McKayle, and Rafael Amargo & Compañia de Flamenco, performing Tiempo Muerto. Ebony Repertory Theatre's stage production of Phillip Hayes Dean's Paul Robeson, starring Keith David, was welcomed by loyal patrons and new theatre goers alike, receiving rave reviews by many of Los Angeles' theatre critics. Facebook: www.facebook.com/ebonyrepertorytheatre.

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