Lar Lubovitch

Last updated
Lar Lubovitch
Lar Lubovitch - 1971.jpg
Lubovitch in 1971
BornApril 9, 1943 (1943-04-09) (age 81)
Education Juilliard School (1964)
Occupationchoreographer
Years active1964–present
Known for Lar Lubovitch Dance Company

Lar Lubovitch (born April 9, 1943) is an American choreographer. He founded his own dance company, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in 1968. Based in New York City, the company has performed in all 50 American states as well as in more than 30 countries. As of 2005, he had choreographed more than 100 dances for the company. In addition to the company, Lubovitch has also done creative work in ballet, ice-skating venues, and musical theater, notably Into the Woods . He has played a key role in raising funds to fight AIDS.

Contents

Early life and education

Born in Chicago, Lubovitch was educated at the University of Iowa and at New York City's Juilliard School, where he graduated in 1964. [1] His teachers at Juilliard included Antony Tudor, José Limón, Anna Sokolow and Martha Graham.

Career

Lubovitch danced in numerous modern, ballet, jazz and ethnic companies before forming the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in 1968.

His works are included in the repertories of companies throughout the world, including the New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Paris Opera Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project and Netherlands Dance Theater. His work is renowned for its musicality, rhapsodic style and sophisticated formal structures. His radiant, highly technical choreography and deeply humanistic voice have been acclaimed throughout the world.

In 1972, Lubovitch won a Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography. [2] 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 the Broadway show The Red Shoes . The final ballet from that show joined the repertories of American Ballet Theatre and the National Ballet of Canada. For his work on that show, he received the 1993-94 Astaire Award from the Theater Development Fund.

Starting in 1995, the company began focusing on creating dances in New York and teaching throughout the world. A prolific choreographer, Lubovitch created three new dances during the 2004-05 season. The first, Love Stories, was a collaboration between the Lubovitch company and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (it premiered in Chicago in March 2005), the second, Do You Be, was created solely with the Lubovitch company in honor of Meredith Monk and premiered in NYC in November 2004). The third, Elemental Brubeck, is a collaboration between the Lubovitch company and the San Francisco Ballet (premiered in Paris in July 2005). Also in 2005 the Lubovitch company collaborated with the Limón Dance Company in the creation of another new dance, and staged its annual New York City season at the 850-seat Skirball Center on Washington Square in November.

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. United States Artists named him a 2011 Fellow.

Recent projects (as of 2005) have included: the Lubovitch company's world premiere of My Funny Valentine as part of the company's 2001 season in New York at City Center, and (the year before that) staging the world premiere of its acclaimed hit Men's Stories as part of the company's 2000 season in New York at the Orensanz Center for the Arts. Recent projects also include the creation of a full-evening-length (3-act) ballet composed by Elliot Goldenthal based on Othello in an unprecedented collaboration between the Lubovitch company and American Ballet Theatre and San Francisco Ballet. Othello was broadcast nationwide on PBS's Great Performances and nominated for an Emmy Award for its music.

In addition to his work for stage, screen and television, Lubovitch has also made a notable contribution to the advancement of choreography in the field of ice dancing. He has created dances for Olympic gold medalists John Curry, Peggy Fleming and Dorothy Hamill and has choreographed a full-length ice-dancing version of The Sleeping Beauty , starring Olympic medalists Robin Cousins and Rosalynn Sumners. The ballet was broadcast throughout Great Britain and America. He also choreographed a TV project with Isabelle and Paul Duchesnay, who won the silver medal for France at the 1992 Olympics. The show, based on The Planets by Gustav Holst, was broadcast by the A&E television network in June 1995 and was nominated for an International Emmy Award, a Cable ACE Award and a Grammy Award. Most recently he created two new ice dances for Paul Wylie, a duet for Renée Roca and Gorsha Sur, and an ensemble piece for the Ice Theatre of New York.

Significant works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Kidd</span> American choreographer

Michael Kidd was an American film and stage choreographer, dancer and actor, whose career spanned five decades, and who staged some of the leading Broadway and film musicals of the 1940s and 1950s. Kidd, strongly influenced by Charlie Chaplin and Léonide Massine, was an innovator in what came to be known as the "integrated musical", in which dance movements are integral to the plot.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jerome Robbins</span> American choreographer & director (1918–1998)

Jerome Robbins was an American dancer, choreographer, film director, theatre director and producer who worked in classical ballet, on stage, film, and television.

The United States of America is the home of the hip hop dance, swing, tap dance and its derivative Rock and Roll, and modern square dance and one of the major centers for modern dance. There is a variety of social dance and performance or concert dance forms with also a range of traditions of Native American dances.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Sokolow</span> American dance artist (1910–2000)

Anna Sokolow was an American dancer and choreographer. Sokolow's work is known for its social justice focus and theatricality. Throughout her career, Sokolow supported of the development of modern dance around the world, including in Mexico and Israel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Bennett (theater)</span> American choreographer

Michael Bennett was an American musical theatre director, writer, choreographer, and dancer. He won seven Tony Awards for his choreography and direction of Broadway shows and was nominated for an additional eleven.

Lar Lubovitch Dance Company is a dance company based in New York City and founded by Lar Lubovitch in the late 1960s. They have performed at Carnegie Hall, and worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Morris (choreographer)</span> American dancer, choreographer and director

Mark William Morris is an American dancer, choreographer and director whose work is acclaimed for its craftsmanship, ingenuity, humor, and at times eclectic musical accompaniments. Morris is popular among dance aficionados, the music world, as well as mainstream audiences.

Gawain Garth Fagan, CD is a Jamaican modern dance choreographer. He is the founder and artistic director of Garth Fagan Dance, a modern dance company based in Rochester, New York.

<i>The Red Shoes</i> (musical) 1993 Broadway production

The Red Shoes is a musical with a book by Marsha Norman, lyrics by Norman and Bob Merrill and music by Jule Styne. Based on Powell and Pressburger's 1948 film, it tells the tale of a young ballerina who performs in an adaptation of the 1845 Hans Christian Andersen story.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">José Limón</span> Mexican dancer and choreographer (1908–1972)

José Arcadio Limón was a dancer and choreographer from Mexico and who developed what is now known as 'Limón technique'. In the 1940s, he founded the José Limón Dance Company, and in 1968 he created the José Limón Foundation to carry on his work.

Graciela Daniele is an Argentine-American dancer, choreographer, and theatre director.

<i>Othello</i> (ballet) 1998 live album by San Francisco Ballet Orchestra

Othello is a ballet in three acts based on the play of the same name by William Shakespeare. Choreography by Lar Lubovitch is set to an orchestral score composed by Elliot Goldenthal and released commercially on the Varèse Sarabande label. Originally produced in 1997, the ballet was commissioned by the American Ballet Theatre and the San Francisco Ballet.

Alexandre Magno is a Brazilian born choreographer and director. His dance styles include hip-hop, jazz, ballet, samba, flamenco, tango, salsa, and martial arts. He has performed with Madonna, Yanni, Britney Spears, the Lido La Tourné, Ballet Hispanico, the Ringling Brothers Circus, and the Academy Awards. He also works with his own dance company, “Personna Dance Theatre".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Garland (choreographer)</span>

Robert Garland is the artistic director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, where he was a principal dancer and their first official resident choreographer. He has also choreographed for the New York City Ballet, The Royal Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and the Oakland Ballet, among many others.

Keith Roberts is a professional dancer who performed in Twyla Tharp's Las Vegas show Sinatra Dance With Me, which opened on December 11, 2010, and ran through April 2, 2011.

Colin Connor is a Canadian–British dancer, choreographer, and educator, based in the United States. With over forty commissions that span the worlds of contemporary dance, ballet and flamenco. Works draws from a large range of influences – musical, literary, social, and scientific – all used to bring attention back to the communicative power of the human body. He frequently, collaborates with artists of other disciplines, including composers, artists, and designers. As a choreographer, teacher and dancer, Connor is currently influencing the next generation of contemporary dancers and dance makers. Dancers who have trained with Connor have gone on to Mark Morris Dance Group, Scapino Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance, The Limon Dance Company and others.

Katarzyna Skarpetowska is a dancer and choreographer of Polish descent. She danced with the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company from 2007 - 2014, and Parsons Dance Company. from 1999-2006. Her choreography, often set on the Parsons company, is noted for providing a more emotionally complicated contrast to Parson's work.

Jorge Samaniego was a dancer with the New York City Opera Ballet, Western Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater, and Milwaukee Ballet. He choreographed for Puerto Rican Dance Theater and the Des Moines Ballet in Iowa. In 1981 he choreographed a PBS production of Romeo and Juliet, in which he played the role of Mercutio. His company was called the Samaniego Dance Gallery, established in 1977. Dance Magazine reports: "His annual stagings of A Christmas Carol, Peter and the Wolf, and The Nutcracker were holiday favorites in southern California."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antonia Franceschi</span> American actor and choreographer

Antonia Franceschi is an American actress, dancer, and choreographer.

Lea Elizabeth Ved is an American contemporary dancer and choreographer. She was a second soloist contemporary dancer at the Royal Swedish Ballet, dancing with the company from 2016 until 2018. Ved currently dances with Nederlands Dans Theater.

References

  1. "Alumni News". The Juilliard School. September 2008. Archived from the original on 2011-11-11.
  2. "Lar Lubovitch – John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation…" . Retrieved 2024-10-02.
  3. Bremser, Martha. Fifty Contemporary Choreographers, Taylor & Francis (2010) pp. 225-233
  4. Kassing, Gayle. History of Dance: An Interactive Arts Approach, Human Kinetics (2007) pp. 269-270