Ford Theatres Presents Lula Washington Dance Theatre, Today

The Ford Theatres presents Lula Washington Dance Theatre (LWDT) on Friday, June 8 at 8:30pm, as part of its IGNITE @ the FORD! series. For this joyous evening of dance, the Ford Theatres has brought together three renowned choreographers - Kyle Abraham, Rennie Harris and David Roussève - to set works on one of Los Angeles's most beloved contemporary dance companies, LWDT, alongside pieces by the esteemed Lula Washington and Tamica Washington-Miller. This performance is taking place in recognition of the 2018 Dance/USA Annual Conference, the country's broadest gathering of dance professionals, from June 6-9 in Los Angeles.

Lula Washington and Erwin Washington, the company's co-founder and Executive Director, will be recognized this summer for their impact on dance in Los Angeles and beyond. They will receive the Dance/USA Champion Award at this year's conference. The Champion Award is given to an organization, business, foundation, or individual in appreciation for their achievements, leadership, outstanding service, and dedicated efforts that have sustained and significantly advanced the dance field in the Annual Conference host city. A national service organization for the professional dance field, Dance/USA sustains and advances professional dance by addressing the needs, concerns, and interests of artists, administrators, and organizations. The Dance/USA Annual Conference offers expertise from industry leaders, networking with peers, skill-building professional development, discussion on important issues facing the field, and more.

"When I realized that these three leading choreographers were all teaching at UCLA, I knew the stars had aligned," said Ford Theatres Interim Executive Director Olga Garay-English. "Lula Washington Dance Theatre, which is home to both Lula Washington and Tamica Washington-Miller, major choreographers in their own right, is the ideal vessel to hold the work of this impressive trio of artists: Kyle Abraham, Rennie Harris, and David Roussève."

Kyle Abraham's Hallowed (2014) is performed by a trio and set to church recordings by Bertha Gober and Cleo Kennedy; it premiered in 2014 as part of Kyle Abraham's Resident Commissioned Artist presentation at New York Live Arts.

A 2016 Doris Duke Artist Award recipient and 2015 City Center Choreography Fellow, Kyle Abraham (Pittsburgh, PA) is a 2013 MacArthur Fellow. Previous awards include being named a 2012 United States Artists Ford Fellow, a Creative Capital Fellow and receiving a 2012 Jacob's Pillow Dance Award. In 2010, he received a prestigious Bessie Award for Outstanding Performance in Dance for his work in The Radio Show, and a Princess Grace Award for Choreography in 2010. The previous year, he was selected as one of Dance Magazine's 25 To Watch for 2009. Over the past several years, Abraham has created works for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Wendy Whelan's Restless Creature and three works for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. In 2011, OUT Magazine labeled Abraham as the "best and brightest creative talent to emerge in New York City in the age of Obama."

Rennie Harris' Reign (2010) was originally created for Lula Washington Dance Theatre's 30th anniversary in 2010. In 2018, he revised the piece with funding by the Ford Theatres - this performance will be the premiere of the revised choreography. This work is about a young woman who loses her way, ends up homeless and finds redemption in the church.

Harris, born in North Philadelphia, founded Rennie Harris Puremovement in 1992 - An American Street Dance Theater company dedicated to preserving and disseminating hip-hop culture. Voted one of the most influential people in the last one hundred years of Philadelphia history, Harris has received two honorary doctorates and several awards, including the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, the Governor's Arts Award, a United States Artist Fellowship, Pew Fellowship, and Guggenheim Fellowship to name a few. The London Times called Harris "the Basquiat of the U.S. contemporary dance scene." He has choreographed multiple pieces for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre including Love Stories (a collaboration with Judith Jamison and Robert Battle), Home, Exodus, and he's currently creating a full evening length work entitled LAZARUS, which will premiere in December of 2018.

David Roussève's Enough? (2016) combines projected video text (written by Roussève and created by video artist Cari Ann Shim Sham), sumptuous music from the 1960s, and a single lush kinetic phrase that is repeated faster and faster until it becomes a jagged cauldron of emotional energy; all to ask whether dance as an art form can even begin to address pressing social movements like Black Lives Matter. Originally commissioned and performed by the San Francisco-based duet company RAWDance, Enough? extends Roussève's investigation of the intersection of choreography and social conversation.

Roussève is a choreographer/writer/director/performer and magna cum laude graduate of Princeton. His dance/theatre company REALITY has performed throughout the UK, Europe, South America and the U.S., including three commissions for the Brooklyn Academy Of Music's Next Wave Festival. Commissions include Houston Ballet, Ballet Hispanico, Cleo Parker Robinson, Dancing Wheels, Atlanta Ballet and Tashkent's Ilkhom Theater Co. In 2017 he choreographed a work for Siti Company, Anne Bogart and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. He has created three films, the most recent screening at film festivals in 11 countries and receiving 10 Festival Awards. Other awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a "Bessie" Award, Creative Capital Fellowship, three Horton Awards, CalArts/Alpert Award, and seven consecutive NEA fellowships. At UCLA, Roussève is Professor of Choreography in the department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance and recently stepped down as Interim Dean of the School of the Arts and Architecture.

Lula Washington's Open Your Eyes (2016), a suite to the legendary Earth Wind & Fire, examines Earth Wind & Fire's feeling of love for all humanity. Lula Washington uses Open Your Eyes to send out a call for tolerance and love of all peoples, no matter their race, gender, sexuality, background or religion.

Lula Washington, founder and artistic director of Lula Washington Dance Theatre, hails from Watts, California. She has received numerous awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts choreography fellowship, the California Dance Educators Award of Excellence and a Woman of the Year Award from the California State Legislature. Her dance often reflects the African-American experience, current and local events, police brutality, and civil rights. She has also choreographed for such films as Disney's The Little Mermaid and James Cameron's Avatar.

Tamica Washington-Miller's There is Always Tomorrow (2016) is about being silent and "the silence" from some leaders and people while horrible things are happening around us, as if to say: "let someone else deal with it" or "don't deal with it now...there's always tomorrow." The piece was done as an exploration of people and the choices we make to "do something now" or remain in the loop, plugged into the matrix or the choice to wear rose-colored glasses and live a "sanitized" "normal" life, like "everyone else." The opening text is from Jiddu Krishnamurti, a philosopher who challenges people to search for the deepest understandings of our own selves so we can move and navigate within this world of greed, violence, worship of money and hate.

Washington-Miller is the Associate Director of Lula Washington Dance Theatre. She has choreographed half a dozen works for the touring company and is well known as a soloist and leading dancer in such works as We Wore The Mask; Ode To The Sixties; Tasting Muddy Waters; Angelitos Negros and other works. Tamica danced as a motion-capture artist in James Cameron's Avatar; she was the motion body for Mo'aat queen of the Na'vi tribe. Tamica has also choreographed for the Moesha television series and for The Parkers. In 2016, she was appointed to the National Advisory Board of the prestigious Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Tickets are available by visiting FordTheatres.org or by calling 323.461.3673.

About Lula Washington Dance Theatre
The Lula Washington Dance Theatre (LWDT) is a Los Angeles-based repertoire dance ensemble that performs innovative and provocative choreography by Lula Washington. The Company tours internationally and has been received with acclaim and admiration. Lula Washington has steadfastly focused on using dance to explore social and humanitarian issues, including aspects of African-American history and culture.

LWDT was founded in 1980 by Lula and Erwin Washington in the inner city area of South Los Angeles, California. Since then, LWDT has risen to become one of the most admired African-American contemporary dance companies in the West - known for powerful, high-energy dancing, unique choreography and exceptional educational residencies.

Dance writer and critic for LA Dance Chronicle, Jeff Slayton, wrote this about the company following its January, 2018 concert at the Wallis Annenberg Theater in Beverly Hills: "One of Los Angeles' longest running modern dance companies, the Lula Washington Dance Theatre, proved that it is still going strong, dancing beautifully and moving forward artistically."

The Company is composed of young, athletic dancers, many of whom were groomed in Lula Washington's inner city dance studio. While Lula Washington encourages her dancers to be excellent performers, she also emphasizes the importance of being leaders in their communities.

LWDT's repertoire unveils honesty, integrity and creativity of unparalleled power - with Lula Washington as the main choreographer and "voice" of LWDT.

Lula Washington augments her choreography with dances by master artists Donald McKayle, Katherine Dunham, Donald Byrd ("The Color Purple"), Louis Johnson ("The Wiz"), Christopher Huggins and local icon Rudy Perez. The Company also performs works by talented emerging choreographers such as Tamica Washington-Miller, Associate Director of LWDT.

LWDT has performed at such venues as Lincoln Center Out of Doors; the Joyce Theatre; the New Jersey Performing Arts Center; Jacob's Pillow; the Ordway Theater in Minneapolis; the Pioneer Center in Reno, Nevada; the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; and at theaters in Germany, Spain, Mexico, and St. Croix, Virgin Islands. In addition to touring, LWDT dances in scores of schools each year
About the Ford Theatres

At 1,200 seats, the Ford Theatres creates an intimate concert experience that is a favorite among Angelenos. Each summer, the Ford hosts music, dance, theatre, film and family events reflective of the communities that comprise Los Angeles County. Proceeds from IGNITE @ the FORD! events benefit the Ford Theatre Foundation. The Ford is owned by the County of Los Angeles and operated in partnership with the Department of Parks and Recreation and the Ford Theatre Foundation. Nestled in a canyon of a County regional park in the Cahuenga Pass, the Ford Theatres has a rich history dating back to the 1920s. Audiences attending the 2018 Season will enjoy a fully revitalized Ford after the completion of a nearly three-year renovation project, including improved lighting and sound and the Ford Terrace Café on the new terrace - dubbed The Zev - with a menu by Crumble Catering.

The 2018 Season at the Ford Theatres is made possible through the support of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Additional support provided by Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, along with ABC7; the Caruso Family Foundation; the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles; Chamber Music America; City National Bank; Discover Hollywood; First 5 LA; Fusicology; The James Irvine Foundation; KCETLink; KCRW; LAArtsOnline.com; Motev; The National Endowment for the Arts; NBC Universal; Southern California Edison; Union Bank; Univision; The Wasserman Foundation; Wells Fargo; and Yelp.com.

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