News and reviews from the company:
Tickets still available for celebration on Nov. 14!
Join Lar Lubovitch for the New York Premiere of "Recordare"
"Meadow" a big hit with The New York Times

For information about benefit tickets, contact Dan Feinstein at the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company: 212.221.7909.

Join Lar Lubovitch for the New York Premiere of "Recordare"

A very limited number of tickets are still available for the 2006 fall benefit of the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, featuring the New York premiere of Recordare as performed by the Limón Dance Company.  Lubovitch created Recordare in 2005 to celebrate the Mexican heritage of his fellow choreographer and long-time friend José Limón.  The work, based on the Mexican "Day of the Dead" celebration, has attracted great critical praise.  At the time of the world premiere in Boston last October, The Boston Globe described Recordare as "vibrant, colorful and irreverent," while The Washington Post greeted its D.C. debut by calling the work "boisterous yet ultimately softhearted... tart and swift...a tender tribute to the balm of religious salvation."

The dance is set to music originally composed by Elliot Goldenthal for a co-production by Music Theater Group and Lincoln Center of an original theatrical work, Juan Darién: A Carnival Mass, created by Julie Taymor and Elliot Goldenthal, and directed by Julie Taymor.  (Goldenthal also composed the commissioned score for Lubovitch's full-length Othello.) 

Come celebrate Recordare's New York premiere with Lar Lubovitch himself, as well as with other company supporters, on opening night of the Limón Dance Company's season at the Joyce Theater, next Tuesday, November 14.  The celebration that night includes the 7:30 performance, immediately followed by a reception with champagne and desserts.  "Friend" tickets are available for $250 each (and $190 of that is tax-deductible).

"Patron" tickets are available for $500 each ($370 tax-deductible), and "Benefactor" tickets are available for $1000 each ($870 tax-deductible).  Patron and Benefactor tickets also include a special post-performance dinner at Sueños, the top-ranked Chelsea restaurant featuring innovative Mexican cuisine by acclaimed chef Sue Torres.  For more information on the benefit or to order your tickets, please contact Dan Feinstein at Lar Lubovitch Dance Company.

"Meadow" a big hit with The New York Times

The revival of Lar Lubovitch's Meadow proved to be one of the highlights of American Ballet Theatre's recent engagement at New York City Center.  In The New York Times, chief dance critic John Rockwell wrote that "American Ballet Theatre has done itself and audiences a favor by bringing back Lar Lubovitch's "Meadow," first seen almost exactly seven years ago..."
Here is the text of the entire review:
DANCE REVIEW | AMERICAN BALLET THEATER

Shades of a Temple Frieze in Dreamy, Exotic Rituals
By JOHN ROCKWELL
Published: October 30, 2006

American Ballet Theater has done itself and its audiences a favor by bringing back Lar Lubovitch's "Meadow," first seen almost exactly seven years ago, also with Ballet Theater at City Center.

"Meadow" is a fluid, lyrical ballet with exotic ritual overtones, a clever score and, an end that...is pretty striking.

The ballet consists of five couples and a central pair; the couples occupy the first part, the lead pair the second and everyone the third. They all float in a foggy dream world behind a scrim. Everyone except the central woman is dressed in blue bottoms and flesh-colored tops with subtle tribal markings. The woman is in a nude unitard.

The 10 corps members flow together sensuously. The central couple spends the second part in iconic poses, as on temple friezes, mostly consisting of the man lifting the woman in hieratic positions. In the third part, the main couple act more like a duo, the man transcending his stoic role as partner. At the end, though, he holds her in another frozen pose, and then, aided by wires and dim lighting, she rises slowly from his arms.

The music for all this is ingenious in two ways. Its seemingly disparate composers (Schubert, William David Brohn, Gavin Bryars and Busoni) make an organic whole, seductive and poetic. And the blend of live and recorded music - a recorded Schubert chorus ("Die Nacht" or "The Night") combined with Mr. Brohn's acerbic live string-orchestra commentary; the Bryars recorded; the Busoni live - is successfully integrated, even if the Schubert was too loud.

Stella Abrera, sensuously statuesque, and the noble David Hallberg were the central couple, and David LaMarche conducted.

The program began with Jorma Elo's "Glow - Stop," previously reviewed, and continued with Agnes de Mille's ever-popular "Rodeo." Last fall Erica Cornejo was a huge hit as the Cowgirl, but she has decamped to join her husband, Carlos Molina, at Boston Ballet. In her place was Xiomara Reyes.
She was sweet, but she lacked Ms. Cornejo's comic command. Ms. Cornejo could balance the cartoonish tomboy with vulnerability. Ms. Reyes, though coached by the same former Cowgirl who had coached Ms. Cornejo, Christine Sarry, too often lapsed into shtick.

Isaac Stappas and Jennifer Alexander repeated their roles from last year as the Head Wrangler and the Ranch Owner's Daughter, while Sascha Radetsky replaced Craig Salstein as the Champion Roper who finally wins the Cowgirl's heart. Mr. Radetsky was fine, but he couldn't quite match Mr. Salstein's blend of bravado and innocence, or his snappy tap dance in cowboy boots. Charles Barker was the new conductor of Copland's folksy music, replacing Mr. LaMarche.

Honorary Committee for Fall 2006 Benefit
 
F. Murray Abraham                               Michael M. Kaiser
Theodore S. Bartwink                            Paul Labrecque
Mikhail Baryshnikov                              Carla Maxwell
Dave Brubeck                                       Kevin McKenzie
Dick Button                                          TerrenceMcNally
Cora Cahan & Bernard Gersten  Judith & Samuel Peabody
Mihail Chemiakin                                  Bernadette Peters
Constantin Costa-Gavras             Martha Roth & Bill Irwin
Robin Cousins, MBE                              JoJo Starbuck
Dorothy Hamill                                     Violette Verdy
 
PHOTO CREDITS:
-- Ryoko Kudo in Lubovitch's Recordare.  Photo © Rosalie O'Connor.
Courtesy of Limón Dance Company.
-- Stella Abrera and David Hallberg in Lubovitch's Meadow.  Photo © Erin Baiano.
Courtesy of photographer.