Lawrence Pech (known as "Larry" to friends and co-workers) is a dancer, choreographer and teacher currently living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Pech was born in 1959 in Denver, Colorado. [1] He received his early classical music training in piano and voice. His first choreographic effort was in the fourth grade, to the Beatles’ "Something..." [1] Pech began studying ballet at the age of 14 with the Colorado Concert Ballet. At 16, he won First Prize in the Colorado Council on the Arts Choreography Competition with a piece set to Pink Floyd's "Have a Cigar". The following year (1977), he received full scholarships to the Joffrey Ballet and American Ballet Theatre schools, [1] the School of American Ballet (New York City Ballet), and Mudra (Maurice Béjart's Ballet of the 20th century in Brussels).
Pech accepted a contract from ABT in 1980 directly from the artistic director, Mikhail Baryshnikov. [1] For the next seven years, he worked with and was choreographed upon by such masters as George Balanchine, Martha Graham, Antony Tudor, Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins (touring with him to the Spoleto Festival in 1982), Twyla Tharp, Paul Taylor, Jiri Kylian, Karole Armitage, David Gordon, Eric Bruhn, Natalia Makarova, Mark Morris, and others. He danced opposite such greats as Mr. Baryshnikov, Ms. Makarova, Ivan Nagy, Cynthia Gregory, Fernando Bujones, Gelsey Kirkland, Cynthia Harvey, Martine van Hamel, Kevin McKenzie, and others. He appeared in numerous Live from Lincoln Center telecasts, and figured prominently with Baryshnikov in the movie Dancer and the Dance (BBC).
In 1986, Helgi Tomasson invited Pech to join the San Francisco Ballet, and he was promoted to Principal dancer in 1990. There, he was choreographed by James Kudelka, David Bintley, Val Caniparoli, Mr. Tomasson, and Lisa deRibere, as well performing principal roles in ballets by Balanchine and others. In 1991, Pech was the subject of a KQED-TV special entitled "Blue Lair", a ballet about his victory over cancer. It was awarded a 1991 Emmy Award for Best Choreography. In 1993, he became co-founder and Artistic Director of the Diablo Ballet, but resigned in 1995.
Pech produced, directed, and performed in three separate programs of original creations for The Florence Gould Theater at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor's Summer Arts Series, The Neptune Society at the Columbarium of San Francisco, and the California Institute of the Arts Summer Program (Valencia). He earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He has written seven musical scores, including a three-movement piano suite, a song cycle for 16 a capella voices, and various chamber works. Pech choreographed as well as performed in numerous musicals around the San Francisco Bay Area (such as Mountain Play's Oklahoma! , which garnered him the Bay Area Theater Critics' Circle Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical as Will Parker and Best Choreography, 1992). He continues to choreograph for the Belasco Children's Theater, and teaches ongoing master classes for Pacific Ballet Academy, the San Francisco Dance Center, and other companies throughout the U.S.
Lawrence Pech has been Ballet Master for the San Francisco Opera [2] for the past several years. He continues to choreograph [3] and compose. He currently is finishing his masters in composition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, under the tuleage of David Conte, chair of the department.
George Balanchine was a Georgian-American ballet choreographer, recognized as one of the most influential choreographers of the 20th-century. Styled as the father of American ballet, he co-founded the New York City Ballet and remained its artistic director for more than 35 years. His choreography is characterized by plotless ballets with minimal costume and décor, performed to classical and neoclassical music.
New York City Ballet (NYCB) is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company. Léon Barzin was the company's first music director. City Ballet grew out of earlier troupes: the Producing Company of the School of American Ballet, 1934; the American Ballet, 1935, and Ballet Caravan, 1936, which merged into American Ballet Caravan, 1941; and directly from the Ballet Society, 1946.
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.
Jerome Robbins was an American dancer, choreographer, film director, theatre director and producer who worked in classical ballet, on stage, film, and television.
Susan P. Stroman is an American theatre director, choreographer, and performer. Her notable theater productions include Oklahoma!, The Music Man, Crazy for You, Contact, The Producers, The Frogs, The Scottsboro Boys, Bullets Over Broadway, POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, and New York, New York.
Lar Lubovitch 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.
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.
San Francisco Ballet is the oldest ballet company in the United States, founded in 1933 as the San Francisco Opera Ballet under the leadership of ballet master Adolph Bolm. The company is currently based in the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, and effective December 2022 under the direction of Tamara Rojo. It is among the world's leading dance companies, presenting more than 100 performances annually, with a repertoire that spans both classical and contemporary ballet. Along with American Ballet Theatre and the New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet has been described as part of the "triumvirate of great classical companies defining the American style on the world stage today."
Contemporary ballet is a genre of dance that incorporates elements of classical ballet and modern dance. It employs classical ballet technique and in many cases classical pointe technique as well, but allows a greater range of movement of the upper body and is not constrained to the rigorously defined body lines and forms found in traditional, classical ballet. Many of its attributes come from the ideas and innovations of 20th-century modern dance, including floor work and turn-in of the legs. The style also contains many movements emphasizing the body's flexibility.
The Minnesota Ballet is a ballet company and school located in Duluth, Minnesota. Founded in 1965 by Donna Harkins and Jan Gibson as the Duluth Civic Ballet, the company has since expanded into a touring company with seventeen professional artists. From 1992 to 2007 the Artistic Executive Director of the Minnesota Ballet was Allen Fields, who retired to become Artistic Director Emeritus. Fields acquired rights to works by choreographers including Agnes de Mille, Antony Tudor, and George Balanchine. He was succeeded by Robert Gardner. In 2019 Karl von Rabenau was appointed Artistic Director. The Minnesota Ballet entered its 54th season in 2019/20.
Lynne Taylor-Corbett is a choreographer, director, lyricist, and composer. She was born in Denver, Colorado.
John Taras was an American ballet master, repetiteur, and choreographer.
Helgi Tomasson is an Icelandic choreographer, and a former professional ballet dancer. He served as artistic director and principal choreographer for San Francisco Ballet.
Symphony in Three Movements is a neoclassical ballet choreographed by George Balanchine to the music of the same name by Igor Stravinsky. The ballet was made for the New York City Ballet Stravinsky Festival in 1972, a tribute to the composer following his death. The ballet premiered on June 18, 1972, at the New York State Theater.
Other Dances is a ballet choreographed by Jerome Robbins to music by Frédéric Chopin. It was created on Natalia Makarova and Mikhail Baryshnikov, and premiered on May 9, 1976, at a gala benefitting the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, held at Metropolitan Opera House. It was originally made as a pièce d'occasion, but after receiving critical acclaim, it was soon added to American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet's repertories.
Who Cares? is a ballet choreographed by George Balanchine to songs by George Gershwin that were orchestrated by Hershy Kay. The ballet is split in two parts, the first danced by an ensemble, and the second focuses on four principal dancers. Who Cares? premiered on February 5, 1970, at the New York State Theater, danced by the New York City Ballet.
Concerto Barocco is a neoclassical ballet choreographed by George Balanchine to Bach's Concerto for Two Violins. Danced by a cast of eleven, the ballet is completely plotless, and according to Balanchine, "has no "subject matter" beyond the score which it is danced and the particular dancers who execute it". The ballet was made for the American Ballet Caravan's 1941 South American tour, and premiered on June 27, 1941, at Teatro Municipal, Rio de Janeiro. The ballet has entered the repertories of many ballet companies, including Balanchine's New York City Ballet.
Cynthia Harvey is an American former ballet dancer, ballet mistress and educator. She joined the American Ballet Theatre (ABT) in 1974 and was promoted to principal dancer in 1982. In 1986, she joined The Royal Ballet, becoming the company's first American principal dancer. She returned to ABT two years later, and retired in 1996. She then started teaching and staging ballets across the world. Between 2016 and 2022, she was the artistic director of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, the affiliated school of ABT.
Val Caniparoli is an American ballet dancer and international choreographer. His work includes more than 100 productions for ballet, opera, and theater for over 50 companies, and his career as a choreographer progressed globally even as he continued his professional dance career with the San Francisco Ballet.