November 5, 2001 Contact: Tiffany Kuo

No tickets are required for these FREE performances. All performances take place at 8 PM; doors open at 7:30 PM. The Juilliard Theater is located at 155 West 65th Street.

9 Lives, choreographed by faculty member Pat Catterson, is a new piece for solo and group that features Ms. Catterson and Juilliard students combining both tap and modern dance techniques. Ms. Catterson describes the piece as a "playful reflection of life and dance" which also can be used to characterize the music she chose to accompany the work - the last movement (Arietta) of Beethoven's final piano sonata, Op. 111 in C Minor. The Arietta is in a slow triple meter that begins with a simple theme to be played cantabile (singingly). The movement expands thematically, harmonically, and rhythmically to the end of the piece until the entire register of the piano - from top to bottom - has been exhausted.

Margie Gillis will perform from her extensive repertoire in these workshops. Juilliard dancers from repertoire classes of Stephen Pier, Ethel Winter, and Risa Steinberg will perform their new works, which were created in the classic styles of José Limón and Martha Graham. Several independent projects created by Juilliard choreographers in the composition classes of Elizabeth Keen and Pat Catterson also will be premiered.

Pat Catterson is a multi-faceted dance artist who combines modern, tap, and ballroom dance vocabularies. She has created eighty dances and received multiple grants in choreography from the National Endowment for the Arts and the CAPS Program, as well as the Vogelstein and Harkness foundations. She also was a 1995 Fulbright Scholar. Ms. Catterson has taught and performed in Scandinavia and has been a guest artist at numerous U.S. universities. Her choreography has been commissioned by individual artists, schools, and companies, such as Creach/Koester, Minneapolis' New Dance Ensemble, the Dance Theatre of Oregon, and the Eglevsky Ballet Company. Ms. Catterson was dance consultant for the feature film I Shot Andy Warhol. Formerly on the faculties at Sarah Lawrence College, UCLA, and the Merce Cunningham Studio, she has performed with Yvonne Rainer, Douglas Dunn, the Grand Union, and James Cunningham's ACME Dance Company. Her principal teachers have been Merce Cunningham, Voila Farber, Margaret Hills, Jocelyn Lorenz, Charles "Cooky" Cook, Honi Coles, Martha Myers, and Bessie Schönberg.

Margie Gillis has been performing solo dance concerts across her native Canada and internationally for two decades. Her instructors have included prominent teachers such as May O'Donnell, Linda Rabin, Lynda Raino, and Allan Wayne. In 1979, she became the first modern-dance performer, teacher, and lecturer to appear in the Peoples' Republic of China after the end of its Cultural Revolution. She has toured throughout the world and holds the distinction of being named Cultural Ambassador for both Canada and Québec. In January 1988, Ms. Gillis was appointed to the Order of Canada for her "outstanding abilities as a solo performer and choreographer" (she was the first modern dancer to receive this award). As a guest artist, Ms. Gillis has appeared with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens as Miss Lucy in James Kudelka's Dracula. She also has appeared with the Paul Taylor Dance Company, and made guest appearances with the National Ballet of Canada, Momix, Bruce Wood Dance Company, Faustworks Mask Theater, Stephanie Ballard & Dancers, the Montreal and Québec symphonies, and currently is part of the Jessye Norman tour Sacred Ellington. In addition to her solo shows and guest appearances, Ms. Gillis tours a program of duets and solos. Her guest artists and co-choreographers have included Christopher Gillis (her late brother and former principal dancer and choreographer with the Paul Taylor Dance Company), Paula Styron, Joao Mauricio, Peggy Baker, Bruce Wood, David Grenke, Robbie LaFosse, Rex Harrington, and Rob Faust. In 1998 She won a Gemini Award for the CBC Special documentary Wild Hearts in Strange Times.

This season the Juilliard Dance Division celebrates its 50th anniversary as a groundbreaking conservatory dance-training program whose faculty and alumni have changed the face of dance in American and around the world. The Juilliard Dance Division was established in 1951 by William Schuman during his tenure as president of The Juilliard School. Under the guidance of Martha Hill, founding director of the Division, the School became the first major teaching institution to combine equal dance instruction in both modern and ballet techniques, an idea that was considered heretical in its day. Her program was a forecast of the future of dance in America, where ballet and modern dance companies routinely cross into one another's territory. Among the early faculty members were renowned dance figures such as Alfredo Corvino, Doris Humphreys, José Limón, Anna Sokolow, Antony Tudor, and Hector Zaraspe. Beloved by her faculty and her students, Ms. Hill became Artistic Director Emeritus with the appointment of Muriel Topaz as Director in 1985. She remained Artistic Director Emeritus, arranging tours for her dancers, and working full-length days in the office and dance studio, almost until her death in 1995 at the age of ninety-four. Her legacy and Juilliard's are irrevocably intertwined in the accomplishments of her students who have continued her creative spirit.

Graduates of the Division have gone on to dance with virtually every established modern and ballet company in the United States and abroad, and they also are among the directors and administrators of respected companies worldwide. Alumni of the Division include noted directors and choreographers such as Pina Bausch, Martha Clarke, Mercedes Ellington, Robert Garland, Kazuko Hirabayashi, Saeko Ichinohe, Lar Lubovitch, Bruce Marks, Susan Marshall, and Paul Taylor.

Since 1992, noted choreographer and artistic director Benjamin Harkarvy has been Director of the Juilliard Dance Division. While strengthening the discipline and technique training available for the students, he also has expanded the dancers' opportunities to explore choreography and to work with world-famous choreographers first hand. In addition, he has created a Summer Dance Intensive for high school-age ballet students who want to explore modern dance and work with choreographers in new dances.