The Harris Theater for Music and Dance opens its seventh season with the return of "one of the best choreographers in the world" (The New York Times), headlining the acclaimed See the Dance series. Back by popular demand, Chicago native Lar Lubovitch and the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company appear at the Harris Theater September 22 & 23, 2010 at 7:30 pm with two different programs, featuring the full scope of the choreographer's work.
"Lar is a true visionary-one of the world's greatest choreographers," said Michael Tiknis, President and Managing Director of the Harris Theater. "We are thrilled to present his return to Chicago, fresh off the profoundly popular and critically acclaimed setting of Othello for The Joffrey Ballet. It is a rare treat for Chicago audiences to have the opportunity to see such a diverse showcase of this master choreographer's work."
The
Lar Lubovitch Dance Company September engagement at the Harris Theater includes two different programs:
September 22: Program A - North Star (1978), Duet from Meadow (1999), Coltrane's Favorite Things (2010),
Marimba (1976)
September 23: Program B - North Star (1978), Dogs of War (2010), Nature Boy:
Kurt Elling (2005), Cavalcade (1980)
About the works:
In the 1970s, choreographer
Lar Lubovitch pioneered the kinetic potential of minimalist music in dance and forever changed how choreography relates to its musical score. He created a series of six dances set to compositions by Steve Reich and
Philip Glass, including Marimba (1976), North Star (1978) and Cavalcade (1980), which confirmed his status as a visionary in modern dance. Patrons have the exciting opportunity to experience three of these groundbreaking works by attending both performances.
Set to composer
Philip Glass' work of the same name, North Star (1978) is considered one of his most enduring, complex, and haunting dances, described by the Boston Globe as having a "trance-inducing aesthetic at its purest and most satisfying."
Based on the inescapable and unyielding beat provided by Steve Reich's Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices, and Organ, Marimba (1976) provides a "mystical sense of evolution" with "both music and dance, curling and shifting through endless, unbroken loops of sound and motion, [that] have a truly mesmerizing effect" (The New York Times).
Cavalcade (1980) is accompanied by Steve Reich's Octet. Complete with thin streamers that billow in the background and a Chinese ribbon dance, Newsweek describes the work as "so intensely joyful that it comes across like dance therapy."
Featuring one of the "best known all-male duets in the world" (The New York Times), Duet from Meadow (1999) is flowing and lyrical ballet set to the music of composer Gavin Bryars.
Nature Boy:
Kurt Elling (2005) features a collection of romantic duets, set to unique renditions of jazz standards performed by the sensual voice of Chicago Jazz giant
Kurt Elling and the
Kurt Elling Ensemble.
Coltrane's Favorite Things (2010) was inspired by saxophonist John Coltrane's 1963 live recording of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic "My Favorite Things." Through his choreography, Lubovitch highlights the connection between Coltrane's musical "sheets of sound" improvisational style and Jackson Pollock's method of action painting-featured in the work's backdrop reproduction of Pollock's 1950 painting "Autumn Rhythm (Number 30). Lubovitch blends these artistic concepts together with his "ribbons of movement" of flow and oscillating energy.
Premiered in March 2010 at
The Joyce Theater in New York, Lubovitch's newest work Dogs of War (2010) is a "duet for soldiers facing each other across enemy lines...evoking the sinister claustrophobia of trench warfare" (The New York Times).
Paul Vershbow's understated video design on three screens behind the dancers evokes the brutality of battle, in this powerful work set to Prokofiev's tempestuous "Piano Sonata No. 7 in B flat" (Op. 83).
Hailed by The New York Times as "one of the best choreographers in the world,"
Lar Lubovitch is one of America's most versatile and highly acclaimed choreographers. Born in Chicago, Lubovitch was educated at the University of Iowa and the Juilliard School in New York, his instructors at Juilliard included Antony Tudor,
Jose Limon,
Anna Sokolow and
Martha Graham. He founded the
Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in 1968 and since then has choreographed more than 100 dances for his New York-based company and others, including the Joffrey Ballet's highly acclaimed Othello, each renowned for their musicality, rhapsodic style and sophisticated formal structures. In 2007, Lubovitch founded the Chicago Dancing Company, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to present a wide variety of excellent dance and build dance audiences in his native Chicago. For his visionary risk-taking in establishing the Festival, Lubovitch was named a "2007 Chicagoan of the Year" by the Chicago Tribune. As part of this initiative, the Chicago Dancing Festival was launched in summer 2007 and due to its success, reprised in summers 2008 and 2009 with capacity engagements at the Harris as part of the Festival. The Dancing Festival has featured the world's most renowned companies including
American Ballet Theatre,
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, The
Martha Graham Dance Company, The Joffrey Ballet, and the San Francisco Ballet.
Heralded as a "
National Treasure" by Variety, the
Lar Lubovitch Dance Company is acclaimed for both its choreographic excellence and its unsurpassed dancing. Over the past 42 years it has earned a reputation as one of the world's foremost modern dance companies. The company has created more than 100 new dances and has performed before millions throughout the United States and in more than 30 foreign countries.
Tickets for
Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, which range from $45 - $75, are on sale now at the Harris Theater box office located in Millennium Park at 205 E. Randolph Dr., by calling 312-334-7777 or by visiting
www.HarrisTheaterChicago.org.
All programs, prices and dates are subject to change.
Opened in 2003, the Harris Theater's mission is to partner and collaborate with an array of Chicago's emerging and mid-sized performing arts organizations to help them build the resources and infrastructure necessary to achieve artistic growth and long-term organizational sustainability. The Harris Theater for Music and Dance was the first multi-use performing arts venue to be built in the Chicago downtown area since 1929 and today the Theater continues to host the most diverse offerings of any venue in Chicago, featuring the city's world-renowned music and dance institutions and the Harris Theater Presents series of acclaimed national and
International Artists and ensembles. To learn more about the season at the Harris Theater, visit www.harristheaterchicago.org or call the box office at 312-334-7777 to request a brochure.
For additional information about the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, Chicago's state-of-the art 1,470 seat performance venue, please visit www.harristheaterchicago.org.
For further information regarding this performance or high-res images please contact Jennifer Bauer, Harris Theater for Music and Dance at 312.334.2459 or jbauer@harristheaterchicago.org.
The Harris Theater is pleased to announce that UBS is serving as the 2010-2011 Season Sponsor.
Presenting sponsors for the
Lar Lubovitch Dance Company engagement are Pamela Crutchfield, and Abby O'Neil and Carroll Joynes.
North Star was made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts' American Masterpieces: Dance initiative, administered by the New England Foundation for the Arts.
The Harris Theater gratefully acknowledges the Irving Harris Foundation for its leadership support of the Presenting Fund.
United Airlines is the Official Airline of the Harris Theater.
The Harris Theater gratefully acknowledges The
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's support of the theater's collaborative partnerships.
The Harris Theater is partially supported by the CityArts Program 4 grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Illinois
Arts Council, a state agency.
