Lar Lubovitch Dance Company Presents A World Premiere Set to Debussy s String Quartet in G Minor November 14 18, 2012, at Florence Gould Hall

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1 Lar Lubovitch Dance Company Presents A World Premiere Set to Debussy s String Quartet in G Minor November 14 18, 2012, at Florence Gould Hall New York, NY, October 15, 2012 The Lar Lubovitch Dance Company s fall 2012 season features a world premiere for six dancers set to Debussy s String Quartet in G Minor, performed live by the Bryant Park Quartet. The program also includes last season s premiere Crisis Variations (for which Lubovitch was awarded the 2012 Prix Benois de la Danse), set to a commissioned score by Yevgeniy Sharlat, and the company s highly acclaimed The Legend of Ten (2010), set to Brahms s Quintet for Piano and Strings in F Minor (first and fourth movements). With his new work, inspired by Picassos "Family of Saltimbanques," Lubovitch comments on the lives of the itinerant street performers depicted in the painting and, coupled with Debussy s poignant music, creates "a series of interlaced emotional conditions captured in dance," imagining how the ephemeral and uncertain lives of those performing artists may be very like the lives of dancers today. Costumes are designed by former company dancer Reid Bartelme. With Crisis Variations, Lubovitch challenged his signature approach to interpreting musical scores, creating the space for an accidental relationship of music and dance, and what he calls action painting of the sensations evoked by the word crisis. Completing the program is The Legend of Ten. Legend refers not to a mythic story, but to the legend at the bottom of a map that explains the symbols used. A richly textured work for ten dancers, Legend maps the complex shifting terrain of Brahms s music. On the opening night program Little Rhapsodies, a work featuring three male dancers set to piano etudes by Robert Schumann, will replace The Legend of Ten. Lighting design is by Lubovitch s longtime collaborator Jack Mehler. The company s 10 dancers are: Anthony Bocconi, Clifton Brown, Elisa Clark, Nicole Corea, Attila Joey Csiki, Reed Luplau, Brian McGinnis, Laura Rutledge, Katarzyna Skarpetowska, and George Smallwood. Performances will take place Wednesday, November 14 at 7pm; Thursday, November 15 through Saturday, November 17 at 8pm; and Sunday, November 18 at 3pm. Tickets range from $20 to $45 and can be purchased through Ticketmaster at or ticketmaster.com. Press tickets are available for performances beginning Thursday, November 15. For information about the company s Opening Night Celebration on November 14, call or visit Florence Gould Hall is located at 55 East 59th Street (between Park and Madison Avenues). About the Company The Lar Lubovitch Dance Company was founded in Over the past 44 years it has gained an international reputation as one of America s top dance companies. The company, based in New York City, has created more than 100 new dances and performed throughout the United States and in more than 30 other countries. Janet Stapleton 234 West 13th Street, #46 New York, NY 10011

2 Lar Lubovitch is one of America s most versatile, popular and widely seen choreographers. His dances have been performed by major companies throughout the world. His Othello A Dance in Three Acts, originally created for American Ballet Theatre, appeared on PBS s Great Performances (and was nominated for an Emmy Award). His dances on film also include Fandango (International Emmy Award) and My Funny Valentine for the Robert Altman film The Company (nominated for an American Choreography Award). Lubovitch has also made a notable contribution to choreography in the field of ice-dancing, having created dances for Olympic skaters John Curry, Dorothy Hamill, Peggy Fleming, Brian Orser, JoJo Starbuck and Paul Wylie, as well as two ice-dance specials for television: The Sleeping Beauty (PBS) and The Planets (A&E) (nominated for an International Emmy Award, a Cable Ace Award and a Grammy Award). His work on Broadway includes Into the Woods (Tony Award nomination), The Red Shoes (Astaire Award) and the Tony Award-winning revival of The King and I. In 2007, he founded the Chicago Dancing Festival with co-artistic director Jay Franke. The Festival is a series of performances by major American dance companies that takes place the last week of August at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Harris Theater, the Auditorium Theatre, and Chicago s Millennium Park. The Chicago Dancing Festival reaches over 15,000 audience members annually and is completely free to the public. In 2007, Lubovitch was named Chicagoan of the Year by the Chicago Tribune, and in 2008, Lubovitch and Franke were named by Chicago Magazine as Chicagoans of the Year for having created the Chicago Dancing Festival. In 2011 Lubovitch was named a Ford Fellow by United States Artists, and he received the Dance/USA Honors. Lubovitch s was awarded the 2012 Prix Benois de la Danse for Choreography at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow for his dance Crisis Variations. Music Collaborators With rhythmic and expressive vitality (The Baltimore Sun), the Bryant Park Quartet (Anna Elashvili and Ben Russell, violins; Nathan Schram, viola; Tomoko Fujita, cello) is quickly establishing itself as an accomplished string quartet through imaginative, spirited concerts. The BPQ s revolving Ear series creates diverse programs that pair contemporary works with historical masterpieces, shedding light on both composers creative processes. These programs also feature BPQ originals from arrangements of bluegrass tunes to art songs. Emphasizing outreach wherever it performs, the BPQ has established residencies in New York, California, Iowa, Maryland, and Vermont. It is the first ensemble-in-residence at the Stony Brook University Community Music Programs, where it also runs a weeklong Summer Chamber Music Camp (a documentary video of the most recent camp can be found on the quartet s website). As teaching artists, the members have been invited to give master classes and chamber music seminars at Azusa Pacific, Biola, and Cornell universities. A past recipient of the Chamber Music America Residency Partnership Program grant, they have made an impact in the communities they visit by giving interactive presentations at colleges, schools, music programs, community centers, and even unconventional settings like local bars and art galleries. Yevgeniy Sharlat has composed music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, solo, theater, ballet, and film. His recent composition, Piano Quartet, was hailed as "one of the most compelling works to enter the chamber music literature in some time" by the Philadelphia Inquirer. He was the recipient of the 2006 Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Other honors include a commission from the Janet Stapleton 234 West 13th Street, #46 New York, NY 10011

3 Fromm Music Foundation; awards from ASCAP (Morton Gould), Boosey & Hawkes, Leiber & Stoller, and Yale University (Rena Greenwald); and fellowships from MacDowell and Yaddo. His music has been played by such ensembles as Kremerata Baltica, the Seattle Symphony, the Hartford Symphony, Seattle Chamber Players, and the Chamber Orchestra Kremlin, among others. Some of his recent commissions came from Gilmore Keyboard Festival, Seattle Chamber Players, Astral Artistic Services, and LA Piano Duo. Sharlat was born in Moscow in He majored in violin, piano, and music theory at the Academy of Moscow Conservatory. After immigrating to the United States in 1994, he studied composition at the Juilliard Pre- College, Curtis Institute of Music (BM) and Yale University (MM, DMA). He is an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches composition and music theory. * * * * * The Lar Lubovitch Dance Company is supported, in part, by public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. The company also acknowledges the generous support of the Open Society Foundations Performing Arts Recovery Initiative (administered by the Fund for the City of New York), Mid- Atlantic Arts Foundation, New England Foundation for the Arts (National Dance Project touring support and American Masterpieces touring support), New York Community Trust, Little One Foundation, McMullan Family Fund, Daniel Neidich & Brooke Garber Fund, Rudolph Nureyev Foundation for Dance, O Donnell-Green Music & Dance Foundation, Jerome Robbins Foundation, Shubert Foundation, A. Woodner Fund, Harkness Foundation for Dance and numerous additional generous individuals, corporations and foundations. The asyet-unnamed world premiere set to Debussy is being commissioned in part by Ronald E. Creamer, Jr. & Min Kyoung Kim (lead commissioner) and Elysabeth Kleinhans and Bernard & Evelyn Tobin (supporting commissioners). The Legend of Ten was commissioned in part by Ronald E. Creamer, Jr. & Min Kyoung Kim, Pamela Crutchfield, and W. Patrick McMullan III. Initial support for Little Rhapsodies was provided by Irwin Kroot & Anthony Catanzaro, and by Peter Schamel and the Lisa & Steve Cundall Family Charitable Trust, in honor of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. For more information about the company, please visit Press contact: Janet Stapleton / jstapleton@att.net Press kits and digital images are available on request. # # # Janet Stapleton 234 West 13th Street, #46 New York, NY 10011

4 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Dick Caples Tel: Lar Lubovitch awarded the 20 th annual prize for best choreography by the Prix Benois de la Danse at the Bolshoi Theater. He is the first head of an American dance company ever to be so honored. New York, NY, May 23, 2012 Last night at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, Lar Lubovitch was awarded the 20 th annual prize for best choreography by the Prix Benois de la Danse. Lubovitch is the first head of an American dance company ever presented with the award. He was honored for his creation of Crisis Variations, which premiered at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York City on November 9, The work, for seven dancers, is set to a commissioned score by composer Yevgeniy Sharlat, and the score was performed live at its premiere by the ensemble Le Train Bleu, under the direction of conductor Ransom Wilson. To celebrate the occasion, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company performed the duet from Meadow for the audience of 2,500 at the Bolshoi. The dancers in the duet were Katarzyna Skarpetowska and Brian McGinnis. The laureates for best choreography over the previous 19 years include: John Neumeier, Jiri Kylian, Roland Petit, Angelin Preljocaj, Nacho Duato, Alexei Ratmansky, Boris Eifman, Wayne McGregor, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, and Jorma Elo. Other star performers and important international figures from the world of dance received prizes at this year s award ceremony. In addition to the award for choreography given to Lubovitch, the winners in other categories were: For the best performance by a ballerina: Alina Cojocaru for the role of Julie in Liliom at the Hamburg Ballet. For the best performance by a male dancer, the jury awarded two prizes: one to Mathias Heymann of the Paris Opera for dancing Zaël in La Source and one to Carsten Jung of the Hamburg Ballet for the title role in Liliom. For the best composition, Michel Legrand for the music for Liliom at the Hamburg Ballet. A special lifetime achievement in choreography was given to Pierre Lacotte, a French choreographer who celebrated his 80th birthday last month. He did most of his work for the Paris Opera but also

5 choreographed productions at most of the famous ballet and opera houses of the world, including the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and the Marinsky in St. Petersburg. The jury that awarded the prizes was co-chaired by Yuri Grigorovich (choreographer of the Bolshoi Theater) and John Neumeier (director of the Hamburg Ballet). The other members of the jury were Altynai Asylmuratova (artistic director of the Vaganova Ballet Academy in St. Petersburg), Laurent Hilaire (ballet master and deputy director of the Paris Opera Ballet), Kim Joo-won (prima ballerina of the Korea National Ballet of Seoul), Manuel Legris (artistic director of the Vienna State Ballet); Alessandra Ferri (director of the ballet program of Festival dei 2 Mondi in Spoleto), and Jorma Elo (resident choreographer of the Boston Ballet). All of the jurors were themselves previous winners of the Benois de la Danse. The Lar Lubovitch Dance Company will perform Crisis Variations on tour this fall in Philadelphia (Annenberg Center on October 11-13), Boston (Shubert Theater on October 19-20), and Washington DC (Kennedy Center on November 29-30), among other cities, and will present an encore of the dance as part of its next home season in New York City this coming November (at a theater to be announced). The creation of Crisis Variations was supported, in part, by public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. The company also acknowledges the generous support of the Open Society Foundation s Performing Arts Recovery Initiative (administered by the Fund for the City of New York), O Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation, McMullan Family Fund, Shubert Foundation, Jerome Robbins Foundation, A. Woodner Fund, and Harkness Foundation for Dance. For more information on Lar Lubovitch and a list of all the nominees for this year s Prix Benois de la Danse visit ###

6 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 24, 2012 Center Benois de la Danse Bolshoi Theater of Russia Moscow, Russia Contact: Alexander Kolesnikov, phone: edvin@cnt.ru Nominees for 20 th Anniversary Benois de la Danse Awards Announced MOSCOW, RUSSIA -- Twenty ballerinas, male dancers, choreographers and composers have been nominated as potential laureates in the 20 th anniversary Benois de la Danse awards. The prizes are given each year for the best creations of the previous year in classical ballet or other genres of dance throughout the world. Our laureates have created performances on the major stages of dance that elevate the quality and appreciation of dance to ever higher levels on all the inhabited continents of the world. That gives us great pride, said Yuri Grigorovich, the Benois jury co-chairman and one of the founders of the award. This year s nominees represent seven countries -- Russia, Germany, France, Austria, the Netherlands, the United States and South Korea. The laureates will be selected by an international panel of jurists and will be announced at the Bolshoi Theater of Russia here on May 22. In addition to the award ceremony and the gala of nominees, there will be a gala the following night with performances by laureates from the previous years. Last January the ballet world lost one of its very important figures: Rudi van Dantzig, the Dutch choreographer, director, writer, Benois de la Danse Lifetime Achievement laureate and twice member of its jury. As a memorial to Van Dantzig, the principals of the Dutch National Ballet, Matthew Golding (Benois-2012 nominee) and Anna Tsigankova, will dance the choreographer s version of the Black Pas de deux from Swan Lake in the first-night gala. This year s nominees are: CHOREOGRAPHERS PATRICK DE BANA Marie Antoinette, G.Ph.Telemann, A.Vivaldi, L.M.Cobo, Chevalier de Saint-George, W.A.Mozart, I.Ch. Bach, J.-Ph.Rameau. Version of Vienna State Ballet. JEAN-GUILLAUME BART La Source, L. Minkus, L.Délibes. National Paris Opera. LAR LUBOVITCH Crisis Variations, E. Sharlat. Lar Lubovitch Dance Company of New York, NY. CHUNG EUI-SOOK, DANIEL H. BYUN Interview with Isang Yun, I. Yun(arrangement by Kim Tae-hoon). Arzid Modern Dance Company of Seoul.

7 BORIS EIFMAN Rodin, M. Ravel, K, Saint-Saȅns, G. Massenet, C.Debussy, E.Satie. State Academic St. Petersburg Ballet Theatre of Boris Eifman (Russia). BALLERINAS KATHLEEN BREEN COMBES Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, S.Prokofiev/J.Cranko; Titania in A Summer Night s Dream, F.Mendelssohn/G.Balanchine. Boston Ballet (USA) OLGA ESINA The title role in Marie Antoinette, G.Ph.Telemann, A.Vivaldi, L.M.Cobo, Chevalier de Saint-George, W.A.Mozart, I.Ch. Bach, J.-Ph.Rameau./P.de Bana. Version of 2011, Vienna State Ballet. KIM JI-YOUNG The title role in Giselle, A.Adam/P.Bart; Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, S.Prokofiev/J.-Ch.Maillot. Korea National Ballet. ALINA COJOCARU Julie in Liliom. M.Legrand/J.Neumeier. Hamburg Ballet (Germany). SARA MEARNS Honorata in Ocean s Kingdom, P. McCartney/P. Martins. New York City Ballet. EUGUENYA OBRAZTSOVA Kitri in Don Quixote, L.Minkus/A.Fadeechev (after A.Gorsky and M.Petipa). Bolshoi Theatre of Russia. LAËTITIA PUJOL The title role in Cinderella, S.Prokofiev/R.Nureev. National Paris Opera. DANCERS MATTHEW GOLDING Prince in Nutcracker and the Mouse King, P.Chaikovski/W.Eagling, T.van Schajk. Het National Ballet of Amsterdam. VLADISLAV LANTRATOV Basil in Don Quixote, L.Minkus/A.Fadeechev (after A.Gorsky and M.Petipa). Bolshoi Theatre of Russia. LEE DONG-HOON Albert in Giselle, A.Adam/P.Bart; Romeo in Romeo and Julet S.Prokofiev/J.- Ch.Maillot; Prince in Nutcracker, P.Chaikovski/Y.Grigorovitch. Korea National Ballet. CHASE FINLAY Apollo, I.Stravinsky/G.Balanchine. New York City Ballet. MATHIAS HEYMANN - Zaȅl in La Source, L.Minkus. L.Délibes. National Paris Opera. CARSTEN JUNG The title role in Liliom, M.Legrand/J.Neumeier. Hamburg Ballet (Germany). COMPOSERS MICHEL LEGRAND Liliom, choreograph John Neumeier. Hamburg Ballet (Germany). SIR PAUL MCCARTNEY Ocean s Kingdom, choreograph Peter Martins. New York City Ballet.

8 The jury members for this year s awards are: Co-chairs, Yuri Grigorovich, (choreographer of the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia) and John Neumeier, director of the Hamburg Ballet (Germany). Members: Altynai Asylmuratova, artistic director of the Vaganova Ballet Academy in St. Petersburg; Laurent Hilaire, ballet master and deputy director of the Paris Opera Ballet; Kim Joo-won, prima ballerina of the Korea National Ballet of Seoul; Manuel Legris, artistic director of the Vienna State Ballet; Alessandra Ferri, director of the ballet program, of Festival dei 2 Mondi in Spoleto (Italy) and Jorma Elo, resident choreographer of the Boston Ballet (USA). The jury is changed each year to give the Award a representative sample of experts from throughout the world. The participants in the May 23 gala titled Stars of the Benois de la Danse will be: Lucia Lacarra (Benois laureate) and Marlon Dino of the Bavarian State Ballet; Svetlana Zakharova (Benois laureate) and Andrey Merkuriev of the Bolshoi theater of Russia; Bernice Coppieters (Benois laureate) and Chris Roeland of Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo; Hélène Bouchet (Benois laureate) and Carsten Jung of the Hamburg Ballet; Uliana Lopatkina (Benois laureate) and Danila Korsuntsev of the Mariinsky theater; Marie Agnès Gillot (Benois laureate), Laëtitia Pujol and Hervé Moreau (Benois laureate) of the National Paris Opera, Fernando Romero (Benois laureate)of Spain, Wang Di (Benois laureate) of China and Drew Jacoby with Rubinald Pronk of USA and Netherlands. C:\shared_all_2\Dick\DOC\2012 Benois nomination\press release (re-formatted).doc