01/04/11

Story by Peggy Graham

Lar Lubovitch

Modern dance lovers welcome Lar Lubovitch

High resolution photo

High resolution photo

One of America’s most versatile, popular and leading modern dance choreographers, Lar Lubovitch has displayed musicality and sophisticated formal structure in the more than 100 dances he has choreographed for his company. Now in its 43rd year, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company performs a program of old and new dances at 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 29, 2011, in Yardley Hall of the Carlsen Center, Johnson County Community College.

The program will see the revival of Lubovitch’s signature work North Star; Duet from Meadow; Lubovitch’s newest work, The Legend of Ten; and Coltrane’s Favorite Things.

“Talk back” with Lar Lubovitch will take place after the performance.

Created by Lubovitch in 1978, North Star was the first dance ever set to a composition by Philip Glass, and the second of six Lubovitch works set to Minimalist music during the 1970s. In North Star, the choreographer explores the full kinetic potential of Glass’s experimental score, in constantly flowing, shifting patterns of movement that the Boston Globe described as delivering a “trance-inducing aesthetic at its purest and most satisfying.” Grant support for this performance of North Star is provided by the New England Foundation for the Arts through American Masterpieces: Dance Touring Program.

Duet from Meadow is from the second movement of Meadow, which was premiered by American Ballet Theatre at City Center Oct. 22, 1999. Music is from the disc Vita Nova, composed by Gavin Bryars.

In the new The Legend of Ten, set to Brahms’s powerful Piano Quintet (first and fourth movements), the dancers map the complex shifting terrain of the music. Legend premiered in fall 2010 at Baryshnikov Arts Center, New York City.

Coltrane’s Favorite Things, which premiered February 2010 at the Joyce Theater, New York, was inspired by Lubovitch’s Chicago jazz roots and by Coltrane’s saxophone interpretation of Richard Rodgers’s My Favorite Things.

Lubovitch's 14-member troupe has no shortage of talent, and since its inception in 1968 the company has gained a reputation as one of the world's top-ranked modern dance companies. Lubovitch has been cited by The New York Times as "one of the 10 best choreographers in the world.”

Works created by Lubovitch for his company are included in the repertoire of other select companies throughout the world, including the New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Paris Opera Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, Alvin Ailey, American Dance Theater and Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project. ABT staged the premiere of two works he created at the Lubovitch company: Meadow in 1999 and “… smile with my heart” in 2002.

Born in Chicago, Lubovitch was educated at the University of Iowa and the Juilliard School in New York. His teachers at Juilliard included Antony Tudor, Jose Limon, Anna Sokolow and Martha Graham. He danced in numerous modern, ballet, jazz and ethnic companies before forming the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company.

Lubovitch made his Broadway debut in 1987 with the musical staging for the Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine musical, Into the Woods, for which he received a Tony Award nomination. In 1993 he choreographed the highly praised dance sequences for Broadway’s The Red Shoes. The final ballet from that show joined the repertoire of the American Ballet Theatre and National Ballet of Canada. For his work on that show, he received the 1993-94 Astaire Award from the Theater Development Fund. In 1996 he created the musical staging (and two new dances) for the Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of The King and I. Most recently he devised the musical staging for Walt Disney's stage version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame in Berlin. In 2004 he was honored with the Elan Award for his outstanding choreography.

In addition to his work for stage, screen and television, Lubovitch has also made a significant contribution to ice-dancing choreography. He created dances for Olympic gold medalists John Curry, Peggy Fleming and Dorothy Hamill and choreographed a full-length ice-dancing version of The Sleeping Beauty (PBS) and The Planets (A&E) nominated for an International Emmy Award, a Cable ACE Award and a Grammy Award.

In 2007, to supplement the activities (creating, performing and teaching) of the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, he founded the Chicago Dancing Company, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to present a wide variety of excellent dance and build dance audiences in his native Chicago.

Lubovitch’s radiant, highly technical choreography and deeply humanistic voice have been acclaimed throughout the world, and local audiences will appreciate his contributions to dance.

Tickets are $45 and $35, available by calling the PAS box office, 913-469-4445, or online at www.jccc.edu/TheSeries.

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PAS arts education will offer two free master classes with Lar Lubovitch Dance Company members from 4-5:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 28. The class for intermediate-advanced modern dancers will be in Polsky Theatre at JCCC. The class for advanced modern dancers is at Legacy School of the Arts, 12710 S. Pflumm, Suite 104, Olathe. Call 913-469-4445 for reservations. Reservations required.