Lar Lubovitch Dance Company Announces 50th Anniversary Season At The Joyce Theater

The internationally renowned Lar Lubovitch Dance Company celebrates its 50th anniversary this spring with two programs at The Joyce Theater featuring the world premiere of Lar Lubovitch's Something About Night as well as signature works from the Company's vast repertory. The Company will be joined by the Martha Graham Dance Company and principals from The Joffrey Ballet, each performing seminal Lubovitch dances in honor of this milestone year. Performances are at The Joyce Theater April 17-22, 2018 (Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30pm, Thursday and Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 2pm and 8pm, and Sunday at 2pm).

Lar Lubovitch has been called "one of the world's most musical makers of dance" (Dance Magazine). He is one of this country's most prolific and widely seen choreographers. In addition to being performed by his own Company, his dances have appeared in the repertoires of countless modern and ballet companies around the world. His work is noted for its musicality, full-bodied fluid movement, and deeply humanistic voice, and has been hailed by The New Yorker as "a thrilling sight...ravishing the eye...telling stories both complicated and mysterious."

The anniversary season at The Joyce will feature the world premiere of Lubovitch's haunting Something About Night, a work for three dancers set to rare choral music by Franz Schubert.

The season also includes Lubovitch's critically praised Men's Stories: A Concerto in Ruin (2000), a poignant exploration of masculinity, biography, and character performed to an original sound collage/score by Scott Marshall. The Village Voice called Men's Stories "one of Lubovitch's finest...the dance suggests fragments of personal history gleaming within layers of formal dancing." Little Rhapsodies (2007), an exuberant male trio set to Schumann's Symphonic Etudes, Op 13, will also be presented.

Principals from The Joffrey Ballet will perform scenes from Act III of Lubovitch's acclaimed evening-length ballet Othello, with an original score by Academy Award-winning composer Elliot Goldenthal. Co-produced by the Lubovitch Company, American Ballet Theatre, and San Francisco Ballet in 1997, Othello has been in the repertory of The Joffrey Ballet since 2009. Completing the programming is Lubovitch's 2010 work The Legend of Ten. Performed by the Martha Graham Dance Company, this lush work maps the complex, shifting terrain of a Brahms quintet for piano and strings.

The Lar Lubovitch Company dancers are: Jonathan Emanuell Alsberry, Anthony Bocconi, Randy Castillo, Nicole Marie Corea, Barton Cowperthwaite, Tobin Del Cuore, Colin Fuller, Reed Luplau, Matthew McLaughlin, Brett Perry, Benjamin Wardell, and Lukasz Zieba.

Fabrice Calmels, Rory Hohenstein, Victoria Jaiani, and Temur Suluashvili of The Joffrey Ballet will perform Act III, from Lubovitch's Othello.

The dancers of the Martha Graham Dance Company performing Lubovitch's The Legend of Ten are: So Young An, Abdiel Jacobsen, Charlotte Landreau, Lloyd Mayor, Ari Mayzick, Anne O'Donnell, Lorenzo Pagano, Ben Schultz, Laurel Dalley Smith, Anne Souder, and Leslie Andrea Williams.

Program A: April 17-20 (Tuesday-Friday)

The Legend of Ten

Something About Night (world premiere)

Men's Stories

Program B: April 21-22 (Saturday-Sunday)

Little Rhapsodies

Othello, Act III

Something About Night (world premiere)

Men's Stories

Tickets start at $10 and can be purchased through JOYCECHARGE at (212) 242-0800 or online at www.joyce.org. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue (at 19th Street), in Manhattan. Opening Night Gala: Immediately following the performance on April 17, the Company will host a dinner celebrating its 50th anniversary. For more information about the Gala call: (212) 221-7909.

About the Guest Companies

Classically trained to the highest standards, The Joffrey Ballet expresses a unique, inclusive perspective on dance, proudly reflecting the diversity of America with its Company, audiences, and a repertoire that includes major story ballets, reconstructions of masterpieces, and contemporary works. The Company's commitment to accessibility is met through an innovative and highly effective education program including the much-lauded Academy of Dance, Official School of The Joffrey Ballet, community engagement programs, and collaborations with myriad visual and performing arts organizations.

Founded by visionary teacher Robert Joffrey in 1956, and guided by celebrated choreographer Gerald Arpino from 1988 until 2007, The Joffrey Ballet continues to thrive under internationally renowned Artistic Director Ashley Wheater and Executive Director Greg Cameron.

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, Russia, 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.

About the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company

The Lar Lubovitch Dance Company was founded in 1968. Over the past 50 years it has gained an international reputation as one of America's top dance companies. Celebrated for both its choreographic excellence and its unsurpassed dancing, the Company has created more than 110 new dances and performed before millions throughout the United States and in more than 40 countries.

Lar Lubovitch is one of America's most versatile, popular, and widely seen choreographers. In addition to being performed by his own Company, his dances have been performed by many other major companies throughout the world, including American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, The Joffrey Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and the Martha Graham Dance Company. In 2016, he premiered a new evening-length dance based on the Pushkin poem "The Bronze Horseman" at the Mikhailovsky Ballet in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Lubovitch has choreographed concert works for Olympic ice skaters, including John Curry, Peggy Fleming, Brian Orser, JoJo Starbuck, and Paul Wylie, and created feature-length ice-dance specials for television: The Planets for A&E (nominated for an International Emmy Award, a Cable Ace Award, and a Grammy Award) and The Sleeping Beauty for PBS and Anglia TV, Great Britain. His work for theater and film includes Sondheim/Lapine's Into the Woods (Tony Award nomination), The Red Shoes (Astaire Award), the Tony Award-winning revival of The King and I on Broadway and in London's West End, Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame in Berlin, and Robert Altman's movie The Company (American Choreography Award).

Over the past ten years, Lubovitch has focused a significant part of his attention on curating. In 2007, together with Company member Jay Franke, he created the Chicago Dancing Festival, launched in collaboration with the City of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art, which, for 10 seasons, presented five days of performances taking place in four major theaters in downtown Chicago, and featured a national roster of leading American dance companies. The festival was seen every August by an audience of 15,000 people and was presented entirely free to the public. For this service to the public, Lubovitch was named Chicagoan of the Year by the Chicago Tribune (2007) and Chicago Magazine (2008). More recently, Lubovitch conceived and directed the critically acclaimed NY Quadrille at The Joyce Theater featuring four New York-based dance companies, as well as the lecture-demonstration series Heart of Dance featuring major modern companies and was live-streamed from NYU's Crystal Theater to universities in California.

Lubovitch is the recipient of numerous awards. Among the most recent: In 2011, he was named a Ford Fellow by United States Artists and also received the Dance/USA Honors Award. In 2012, his dance Crisis Variations was awarded the Prix Benois de la Danse for outstanding choreography at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. In 2013, the American Dance Guild honored him for lifetime achievement, and in 2014 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by The Juilliard School in New York City. In 2016, he received the Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement and the Dance Magazine Award, and was named one of America's Irreplaceable Dance Treasures by the Dance Heritage Coalition. This April, he will be honored with the Martha Graham Award. He was appointed a Distinguished Professor of Dance at UC/Irvine in 2016. Since then, he and members of his Company have conducted 15 weeks of activities there every year.

The Company is supported, in part, by public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. The Company also appreciates the generous support of the Howard Gilman Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, Marta Heflin Foundation, Hyde & Watson Foundation, Little One Foundation, McMullan Family Fund, Shubert Foundation, Singers' Forum, A. Woodner Fund, and additional foundations, corporation and individuals.

For more information about the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, visit www.lubovitch.org.

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