Tharp and San Francisco Ballet Receive Robbins Awards

According to the New York Times the 2008 Jerome Robbins Award for excellence in dance or theatre will go to choreographer Twyla Tharp and the San Francisco Ballet. 

In 1995, Jerome Robbins wrote to the directors of his foundation, "I would like there to be established a prize to some really greatly outstanding person or art institution. The prizes should lean toward the arts of dance and its associative collaborators but not necessarily be defined by that surround." In explanation, he cited many callings, from teachers and designers to choreographers and presenting organizations, enjoining the directors to award the prize only when warranted by the distinction of the person, organization, or project. The directors of The Jerome Robbins Foundation – Ms. Floria V. Lasky, Esq., Mr. Allen Greenberg, and Dr. Daniel Stern – in pursuit of Mr. Robbins' expressed desires, awarded the first two Jerome Robbins Prizes in 2003.

Jerome Robbins established the Foundation in 1958, in honor of his mother, with the intent to support dance, theater, and their associative arts. Later, following the outbreak of AIDS, he directed Foundation resources to the AIDS crisis which contributions continue today. Before his death, Mr. Robbins conveyed his wish that the Foundation extend its resources to the performing arts – dance and theater especially, though not exclusively.