Juilliard Dance to Present NEW DANCES: EDITION 2019

Juilliard Dance, under the direction of Alicia Graf Mack, announces New Dances: Edition 2019 taking place December 11-15, 2019, in Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater. The first-year dancers are working with alumna and acclaimed choreographer Amy Hall Garner. The second-year class is working with Jamar Roberts, a dancer and resident choreographer at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. The third-year dancers are working with alumna Andrea Miller, the founder and artistic director of Gallim, based in Brooklyn; she also was the first choreographer to be named artist in residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The fourth-year dancers are working with Stephen Petronio, who has had his own New York City-based company. This is the first year that the choreographers have been selected by director Alicia Graf Mack, and it is also the first time that Stephen Petronio, Jamar Roberts, and Amy Hall Garner are working with Juilliard dancers.

"New Dances: Edition 2019 features four New York-based choreographers who are known for their vibrancy and ability to create physically driving and technically brilliant work," Juilliard Dance Director Alicia Graf Mack said. "Not only will their artistry bring a high standard of excellence to our program, they are all intent in involving the students in the choreographic process, thereby enhancing the educational value of this performance experience."

Juilliard's Music Division will collaborate with Juilliard Dance: Juilliard orchestral players will join viola da gamba player Liam Byrne in DISSONANCE by Valgeir Sigurðsson for Stephen Petronio's fourth-year piece, #PrayerForNow, and Juilliard Jazz musicians will perform saxophonist and composer Oded Tzur's The Song of the Silent Dragon for Jamar Roberts' second-year piece This Great Wilderness. Juilliard Jazz alumnus, pianist Joel Wenhardt, will perform on Amy Hall Garner's first-year piece, Sight & Sound.

Performances take place December 11, 12, and 13, 2019, at 7:30pm; December 14, 2019, at 2 and 7:30pm; and December 15, 2019, at 3pm, all in Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater.

Tickets for New Dances at $30 ($15 for full-time students with a valid ID) are available at juilliard.edu/calendar.

New Dances: Edition 2019 Choreographers

Amy Hall Garner (BFA '99, dance) is a native of Huntsville, Alabama, and a graduate of Juilliard. Her work has been commissioned by Ailey II, ABT Studio Company, Collage Dance Collective, Juilliard, the Ailey School, Barnard College, the University of the Arts, Columbia Ballet Collaborative, Point Park University, and Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet. She coached Grammy Award winner Beyoncé, providing additional choreography for the Mrs. Carter Show World Tour and her theatrical choreography credits include The Color Purple (Milwaukee Repertory Theater) and Invisible Thread (associate choreographer, Second Stage Theater). In 2018, she participated in Alvin Ailey's New Directions Choreography Lab supported by the Ford Foundation. Garner, one of the first recipients of the Joffrey Ballet's Choreography of Color Award (now titled Winning Works), is an adjunct professor at New York University's New Studio on Broadway at Tisch School of the Arts.

Jamar Roberts is the resident choreographer of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT). A dancer with the company since 2002, Roberts' first full-length work for the company, Members Don't Get Weary, premiered at New York City Center in December 2016. He has also set his work entitled Gemeos on Ailey II. Roberts is a graduate of the New World School of the Arts and the Ailey School and has danced for AAADT, Ailey II, and Complexions Contemporary Ballet. Roberts won the 2016 "Bessie" Award for outstanding performer; has performed as a guest artist with the Royal Ballet in London; and has made multiple television performance appearances. His next work for AAADT, Ode, will premiere in New York in December, and he will create a world premiere for New York City Ballet in spring 2020.

Andrea Miller, artistic director of Gallim is a groundbreaking artist who's widely recognized for her visceral yet poetic approach to movement. A sought-after creator and collaborator in art, film, theater, and fashion, Miller is the first-ever choreographer named artist in residence of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2018). Her works have been performed at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Theatre National de Chaillot, Festival Grec, Teatros del Canal, BAM, the Joyce, City Center, Spoleto USA, and Jacob's Pillow. Her commissions include Martha Graham, Pennsylvania Ballet, Ballet Bern, A.I.M, Ballet Hispanico, NDT2, Ailey II, Rambert2, and Juilliard, and she has received Guggenheim, Jeerwood, and Princess Grace fellowships. Miller's cross collaborations include film-(director Xavier Dolan and performer Robbie Fairchild), photography-(Art Basel), and choreography (Hermès, Vogue, and Calvin Klein). Miller is committed to dance education and teaches from Gallim's Brooklyn studio as well as at academic institutions such as Barnard (adjunct professor), Harvard, Juilliard, Marymount, and the University of California at Santa Barbara, among others.

For 35 years, Stephen Petronio has honed a unique language of movement that speaks to the intuitive and complex possibilities of the body informed by its shifting cultural context. He has collaborated with a wide range of artists in many disciplines over his career and holds the integration of multiple forms as fundamental to his creative drive and vision. He continues to create a haven for dancers with a keen interest in the history of contemporary movement and an appetite for the unknown. Petronio was born in Newark, New Jersey, and received a BA from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he began his early training in improvisation and dance technique. He was greatly influenced by working with Steve Paxton and was the first male dancer with the Trisha Brown Dance Company (1979-86). He has gone on to build a unique career, receiving numerous accolades, including a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, awards from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, and New York Foundation for the Arts; an American Choreographer Award, a New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award; and a 2015 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award.

About Alicia Graf Mack, Director of Juilliard Dance

Alicia Graf Mack enjoyed a distinguished career as a leading dancer of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. She has also been a principal dancer with Dance Theatre of Harlem and Complexions Contemporary Ballet, and she has danced as a guest performer with Alonzo King's LINES Ballet, Beyoncé, John Legend, Andre 3000, and Alicia Keys. Graf Mack graduated magna cum laude with honors in history from Columbia University and holds an MA in nonprofit management from Washington University in St. Louis. In 2007, Smithsonian magazine named her an American Innovator of the Arts and Sciences. She is a recipient of the Columbia University Medal of Excellence, an award given each year to an alumnus who has demonstrated excellence in their field of work. In 2008, she delivered the keynote address to the graduates of Columbia University's School of General Studies. As a dance educator, Graf Mack taught as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Houston and was a visiting assistant professor at Webster University. She is a co-founder of D(n)A Arts Collective, an initiative created to enrich the lives of young dancers through master classes and intensives. She began her inaugural season as director of the Juilliard Dance Division in fall 2018.

Now under the direction of Alicia Graf Mack, Juilliard Dance develops artists of the 21st century-trained in ballet, modern, and contemporary dance forms. Established in 1951 by William Schuman during his tenure as president of Juilliard, with the guidance of founding division director Martha Hill, Juilliard became the first major teaching institution to combine equal instruction in both contemporary and ballet techniques.

In the four-year dance program-leading to a bachelor of fine arts degree-students learn the great traditions of both past and present. Juilliard dancers enjoy unparalleled opportunities to work with today's leading choreographers and perform both new and existing repertory. In addition to high caliber technical training and performances, dancers learn about the craft of choreography and immerse themselves in other facets of the field. Located at Lincoln Center in New York City, Juilliard prepares dancers for all the possibilities that lie ahead.

Juilliard dance alumni include, among many others, the choreographers and directors Robert Battle, Pina Bausch, Amy Hall Garner, Jessica Lang, Lar Lubovitch, Andrea Miller, Ohad Naharin, and Paul Taylor. Juilliard dancers are currently dancing in Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Nederlands Dans Theater, Nederlands Dans Theater 2, Ballet BC, Aspen/Santa Fe Ballet, BJM, L.A. Dance Project, Limón Dance Company, GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, Ballett des Saarländisches Staatstheater, Kidd Pivot, and Batsheva Dance Company, among many others, as well as in several Broadway productions.

The Juilliard Dance Division, proud recipient of the 2015 Capezio Award, was the first educational institution to receive the honor. (juilliard.edu/dance)