Bernadette Peters & Ballet Stars Join "Prelude to a Dance" Gala

Two-time Tony Award winner Bernadette Peters and American Ballet Theatre principal dancers Julie Kent and Marcelo Gomes will join the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company as guest artists at "Prelude to a Dance," a gala performance on Wednesday, April 23.

Conceived as the official launch of the Lubovitch company's 40th anniversary celebration, this one-night-only concert presentation will include a special appearance by the multi-talented Ms. Peters, a sneak preview of a new Lubovitch work-in-progress and the duet from Lubovitch's acclaimed Meadow, danced by Kent and Gomes.

"Prelude to a Dance" will take place at the historic Hudson Theatre, located in the Millennium Broadway Hotel New York, 145 West 44th Street. Gala tickets, including a 6 pm reception and post-performance supper, are priced from $500. Mezzanine tickets for the 7 pm performance only are available for $150 per person, and a limited number of $100 and $75 balcony seats also offered. To order tickets – or for more information – please call the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company at 212.221.7909, or e-mail development@lubovitch.org.

"Prelude to a Dance" brings together many of Lar Lubovitch's closest friends and artistic collaborators from the worlds of Broadway, ballet and modern dance. Lubovitch first worked with Bernadette Peters when he made his Broadway debut choreographing the 1987 Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine musical Into the Woods. Marvin Laird, who will accompany Ms. Peters, also created the score for "...smile with my heart," Lubovitch's 2002 tribute to the work of Richard Rodgers. Julie Kent and Marcelo Gomes have performed principal roles in many of Lubovitch's collaborations at American Ballet Theatre (including Meadow, Artemis and his full-length Othello). Pedja Muzijevic, a concert pianist who has also worked closely with Mikhail Baryshnikov, joined the company for its premiere of Little Rhapsodies last year, and is now expanding his collaboration by working with Lubovitch on the world premiere of a new dance this year.

"Prelude" is the first in a series of performances and special events planned for the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company's 40th anniversary, with other highlights including a week-long season at NY City Center (November 5-9; opening night benefit on November 5); a five-night retrospective at Dance Theater Workshop (September 30-October 4) featuring pioneering Lubovitch works from the 1970s set to Minimalist scores by Steve Reich and Philip Glass; and a 22-city international tour running from July 2008 through February 2009. More information about the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company can be found on-line at www.lubovitch.org

Lar Lubovitch: Lar Lubovitch is one of America's foremost dance makers, with work spanning the worlds of modern dance, ballet (including his full-length Othello for American Ballet Theatre), Broadway (Into the Woods, The Red Shoes) and even Olympic skating – he created ice dances for such medal-winners as Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hamill and John Curry. Lubovitch founded the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in 1968. In the four decades since, he has choreographed more than 100 dances for the New York City-based company, which has performed in nearly all 50 American states as well as in more than 30 foreign countries. Lubovitch works are also performed by many other leading dance companies around 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 the San Francisco Ballet. Lubovitch's dances are renowned for their musicality, rhapsodic style and sophisticated formal structures. His radiant, highly technical choreography and deeply humanistic voice have been acclaimed throughout the world. Lar Lubovitch has been hailed by The New York Times as "one of the ten best choreographers in the world," and the company has been called a "national treasure" by Variety. Bernadette Peters: Throughout her illustrious career, Tony Award-winning actress Bernadette Peters has dazzled audiences and critics with her performances on stage and television, in concert, and on recordings. In 2003, she received her seventh Tony Award nomination for her electrifying portrayal of Momma Rose in Sam Mendes' record-breaking Broadway revival of Gypsy, and her brilliant performance was captured on the Grammy award-winning Gypsy cast recording. Peters' latest Angel Records CD, Sondheim, Etc., Etc.: Bernadette Peters Live at Carnegie Hall (The Rest of It), features never-before-released highlights from her historic 1996 solo debut at Carnegie Hall.

In June 1999, Peters earned her second Tony Award, her third Drama Desk Award, and an Outer Critics Circle Award for her show-stopping portrayal of Annie Oakley in one of Broadway's most popular musicals, the smash Tony Award-winning hit Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun. In 1996, she made her highly-anticipated solo debut at Carnegie Hall in an exclusive concert benefiting Gay Men's Health Crisis – a performance she repeated in Bernadette Peters in Concert, her London solo debut at Royal Festival Hall, which later was telecast on PBS.

She garnered the 1986 Tony, Drama Desk, and Drama League Awards for her electrifying performance in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Song and Dance; earned Tony nominations for her work in Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George, Neil Simon's The Goodbye Girl, Jerry Herman's Mack and Mabel, and Leonard Bernstein's On the Town; and earned a Drama Desk Award nomination for her portrayal of the Witch in Sondheim's Into the Woods. Some of her other theatre credits include George M! (Theatre World Citation Award), Dames at Sea (Drama Desk Award), and Sally and Marsha at Manhattan Theatre Club.

In June 2002, she made her Radio City Music Hall solo debut in a concert entitled Bernadette Peters Loves Rodgers & Hammerstein. Her television credits include Hey, Mr. Producer! The Musical World of Cameron Mackintosh, the star-studded Sondheim: A Celebration at Carnegie Hall, and Terrence McNally's The Last Mile, all for PBS's highly acclaimed Great Performances series. She has also starred in numerous television movies such as David, Fall from Grace, The Odyssey, Cinderella, What the Deaf Man Heard, Bobbie's Girl (Daytime Emmy Award nomination), and Prince Charming. She also received an Emmy nomination for her special guest appearance on the hit TV shows Ally McBeal. Film credits include Pennies From Heaven (Golden Globe Award), Silent Movie, The Longest Yard, The Jerk, Annie, Impromptu, Alice, Let It Snow, and It Runs in the Family, starring opposite Kirk and Michael Douglas. In addition to numerous original Broadway cast recordings, Peters has recorded six solo albums: Sondheim, Etc., Etc.: Bernadette Peters Live at Carnegie Hall (The Rest of It); Bernadette Peters Loves Rodgers & Hammerstein (Grammy Nomination); Sondheim Etc.: Bernadette Peters Live At Carnegie Hall (Grammy Nomination); I'll Be Your Baby Tonight (Grammy Nomination); Bernadette Peters; and Now Playing. Peters serves on the Board of Directors for Manhattan Theater Club and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Peters' "pet project" is Broadway Barks, an annual, star-studded dog adoption event, she founded with friend Mary Tyler Moore, benefiting animal shelters throughout New York. She resides in New York City and Los Angeles.

Julie Kent: Julie Kent began her dance training with Hortensia Fonseca at the Academy of the Maryland Youth Ballet. She attended the American Ballet Theatre II Summer session and the School of American Ballet before joining American Ballet Theatre as an apprentice in 1985. In that same year, Kent won first place in the regional finals of the National Society of Arts and Letters at the Kennedy Center. In 1986, she was the only American to win a medal at the Prix de Lausanne International Ballet Competition, and she became a member of ABT's corps de ballet. Kent starred in the Herbert Ross film Dancers in 1987. She was appointed a Soloist with ABT in 1990 and a Principal Dancer in 1993, the year in which she won the Erik Bruhn Prize in Toronto. Kent's roles with the Company include the Girl in Afternoon of a Faun, the title role in Anastasia, Terpsichore and Calliope in Apollo, Nikiya in La Bayadère, the third movement in Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1, the title role in Cinderella, Medora in Le Corsaire, the Lady with Him in Dim Lustre, Kitri and the Queen of the Driads in Don Quixote, Titania in The Dream, the Dying Swan,Anne in Christopher Wheeldon's VIII, the second girl in Fancy Free, the Glove Seller in Gaîté Parisienne, Giselle in Giselle, Caroline in Jardin aux Lilas, Manon in Manon, Hanna Glawari in The Merry Widow, the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, Tatiana in Onegin, Desdemona in Othello, the pas de deux Other Dances, the pas de deux in Les Patineurs, Hagar in Pillar of Fire, the Siren in Prodigal Son, the Ranch Owner's Daughter in Rodeo, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, a Lover in Sin and Tonic, Princess Aurora, the Lilac Fairy, and Princess Florine in The Sleeping Beauty, the Sylph in La Sylphide, Odette-Odile in Swan Lake, Sylvia in Sylvia, the second movement in Symphony in C, the Nocturne and the Prelude in Les Sylphides, Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew, the Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, the Woman in Weren't We Fools? and leading roles in Ballet Imperial, Dark Elegies, Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes, Gong, Kaleidoscope, The Leaves Are Fading, Meadow, Mozartiana, Sinfonietta, "…smile with my heart", Spring and Fall, Stepping Stones, Symphonie Concertante and Theme and Variations. She created Artemis in Artemis, Sibyl Vane in Dorian, His Memory and His Experiences in HereAfter and leading roles in Americans We, Baroque Game, The Brahms/Haydn Variations, Clear, Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra, Cruel World, Getting Closer, Known by Heart, Rigaudon, States of Grace, Within You Without You: A Tribute to George Harrison and Without Words.

In April 2000, Kent won the "Prix Benois de la Danse" which was held in Stuttgart. She is the only American ever to have won this prize. Kent starred in the motion picture Center Stage (2000), directed by Nicholas Hytner with original choreography by Susan Stroman. Kent is married to Associate Artistic Director Victor Barbee, and they are the parents of a son, William Spencer Barbee.

Marcelo Gomes: Marcelo Gomes, a native of Brazil, was born in Manaus and raised in Rio de Janeiro, where he began his dance studies at the Helena Lobato and Dalal Achcar Ballet Schools. He went on to study at The Harid Conservatory in Boca Raton, Florida, and at the schools of the Paris Opera Ballet, Houston Ballet, Boston Ballet, and Cuballet.

A prize winner at Lausanne (Hope Prize, 1996), he was also awarded second place at the National Society of Arts and Letters in 1994, and the Winter Festival in Brazil (1993). Gomes joined American Ballet Theatre in 1997 as a member of the corps de ballet. His roles with the Company include the first and third movements in Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1, the Prince Charming in Cinderella, Franz in Coppélia, Conrad, Ali, the Slave and Lankendem in Le Corsaire, Espada and Basilio in Don Quixote, Oberon and Lysander in The Dream, Henry in Christopher Wheeldon's VIII, the third sailor in Fancy Free, Albrecht and the peasant pas de deux in Giselle, The Man (Heaven) and Fortune in HereAfter, Lescaut in Manon, Camille in The Merry Widow, the pas de deux My Funny Valentine, the Cavalier in The Nutcracker, His Imperial Excellency in Offenbach in the Underworld, Onegin and Prince Gremin in Onegin, the Moor in Petrouchka, The Man From the House Opposite in Pillar of Fire, Jeanne de Brienne and Abderakman in Raymonda, Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, a Lover in Sin and Tonic, Sinatra Suite, Gold in The Sleeping Beauty, Prince Siegfried and von Rothbart in Act III of Kevin McKenzie's production of Swan Lake, Aminta and Orion in Sylvia, the second movement in Symphony in C, Lucentio in The Taming of the Shrew, the Sylvia Pas de Deux, the Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux and leading roles in Amazed in Burning Dreams, Ballet Imperial, Baroque Game, The Brahms/Haydn Variations, Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1, Diversion of Angels, Études, Gong, In The Upper Room, Jabula, Petite Mort, Sinfonietta, Les Sylphides, Symphonic Variations, Theme and Variations, Within You Without You: A Tribute to George Harrison and workwithinwork.

He created Aktaion in Artemis, the Portrait in Dorian, Death in HereAfter and leading roles in Black Tuesday, Clear, Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra, and Glow - Stop. Gomes was promoted to Soloist in August 2000 and Principal Dancer in August 2002.

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