January 14, 2002 Contact: Tiffany Kuo

Juilliard Dancers Perform Base Line, a World Premiere by Robert Battle
With Newly Composed Music by Victor L. Goines,
Thus Is All, a New York Premiere by Lar Lubovitch,
And Minus 7, a New York Premiere by Ohad Naharin

Juilliard's Dance Division celebrates its 50th anniversary in its Spring Dance Performances with a World Premiere by choreographer and alumnus Robert Battle, with new music by Director of Institute for Jazz Studies, Victor L. Goines; and two New York Premieres by alumni choreographers Lar Lubovitch, and Ohad Naharin. Performances in the Juilliard Theater begin Thursday, February 21, and continue Friday, February 22, and Saturday, February 23, all at 8PM, and conclude on Sunday, February 24 at 3 PM. Tickets are $15, and will be available January 17. For students and seniors, free tickets will be available February 18. All tickets will be at the Juilliard Box Office. For more information, please call the box office at (212) 769-7406. The Juilliard Theater is located at 155 West 65th Street.

Base Line, a new work by Robert Battle, will be danced to a commissioned score by Victor L. Goines, Juilliard's new director of Institute for Jazz Studies. Originally from Miami, Florida, Mr. Battle studied under Gerri Houlihan at the New World School of the Arts before studying choreography with Bessie Schoenberg, Elizabeth Keen, and Doris Rudko at Juilliard, where he received the Princess Grace Dance Scholarship and the Martha Hill Prize. Since graduation in 1994, Mr. Battle has been a member of the Parsons Dance Company. His choreography has been performed worldwide, including the Sydney Opera House, various cities in Italy, and here in New York City at the Joyce Theater, St. Mark's Chuch, Dancenow, and the Joyce Soho.

Numerous companies have commissioned Mr. Battle to create both new works and restagings, including the Hubbard Street Repertory Ensemble, Ailey II, Dallas Black Dance Theater, and the Ruth Rosenberg Dance Ensemble. At the Parsons' 2000 Joyce season, Mr. Battle premiered Dementia, with music by John Mackey. Most recently, Mr. Battle was commissioned by Evolving Arts, Inc. for a new work, Isolation, with music by Steve Reich; this work has been featured on channel Thirteen's Metro Arts in New York City.

Lar Lubovitch, the founder of the 28 year-old Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, choreographed the New York Premiere of Thus Is All, which will be danced to a live performance of various Mozart arias sung by students of the Vocal Arts department. A familiar face at Juilliard and a graduate (1964), Mr. Lubovitch's Whirligogs was performed by the Dance Division with music by Luciano Berio, in November 1985. Renown for remarkable musicality and inventions, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company has performed on nearly every continent and in every state in America. In addition to all the major halls in New York City, such as Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, and the New York State Theater, and major ballet companies such as the American Ballet Theater, San Francisco Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, Mr. Lubovitch's works have also appeared in the Olympics. In the field of ice-dancing, he choreographed for Olympic gold medallists John Curry, Peggy Fleming, and Dorothy Hamill, and created a full-length ice dancing version of The Sleeping Beauty, which was broadcast throughout Great Britain and America in 1988.

Mr. Lubovitch made his Broadway debut in 1987 with the musical staging of the Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine musical Into the Woods, for which he received his first Tony Award nomination. Most recently on Broadway he choreographed the infamous "Dance of the Seven Veils" for the Circle in the Square production of Salome, as well as The Red Shoes, from which "The Ballet of the Red Shoes" was taken. For his work on The Red Shoes, he received the 1993-94 Astaire Award from the Theatre Development Fund. The telecast of his dance Fandango, part of the PBS series "Great Performances", was honored with an Emmy Award.

Israeli born choreographer Ohad Naharin began his dance training in Israel with the Batsheva Dance Company, and later continued at Juilliard and the School of American Ballet. After having performed with major dance companies in Europe and the USA, Mr. Naharin made his choreographic debut in 1980, which was greeted with both critical and popular praise. Mr. Naharin has been commissioned by numerous dance companies, including the Nederlands Dans Theater, Sydney Dance Company, Pittsburgh Ballet Theater, Le Ballet du Grand Theatre de Geneve, Batsheva Dance Company and the Israel Festival in Jerusalem, Baayerisches Staatsballet of Munich, Lyon Opera Ballet, Cullberg Ballet, Frankfurt Ballet, Finnish National Ballet, and Compania Nacional de Danza de Madrid, among others.

In 1987 the Nederlands Dans Theater was the first European dance company to invite Ohad Naharin to work as a guest choreographer. Today the company has many of his works in its repertoire: Chameleon Dances (1987), Tabula Rasa (1988), Queen of Golub (1989), Sinking of the Titanic (1991), Black Milk, and excerpts of Kyr (1992) and Perpetuum (1993). For NDT 2 he re-staged Innostress and created Passomezzo (1989) and for NDT 3 he created Off White (1992). In June 1990 he was appointed Artistic Director of Batsheva Dance Company. In April 1995 Ohad Naharin visited the Het Muziektheater in Amsterdam with his own company, which performed Anaphase, a production he made in 1993 for the Israel Festival Jerusalem. His New York premiere piece, Minus 7, juxtaposes contrasting themes of humor and tragedy.

Beginning in the fall of 2001, 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 America 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, Bruce Marks, Susan Marshall, and Paul Taylor, in addition to the three alumni whose works are included in this 50th anniversary celebration: Robert Battle, Lar Lubovitch, and Ohad Naharin.

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.

The Dance Division's four-year course of study offers students the choice of pursuing a bachelor of fine arts degree or a diploma. The core curriculum requires intensive technical study and performance in classical ballet and modern dance, and includes courses in repertory, pas de deux, pointe or men's class, dance composition, anatomy, dance history, stagecraft, production, and music theory. The dancers work in an enormous variety of repertory styles and techniques. Electives such as acting, voice, and tap also are offered, as well as Indian dance, jazz, and elements of performing. All dancers are introduced to the techniques of creating new works in beginning choreography classes. For those who wish to explore further, there are advanced choreography classes and the opportunity for all to work with established choreographers and in premiere dances. Dance facilities at Juilliard include five class and rehearsal studios, as well as the 933-seat Juilliard Theater and other smaller performance venues. The Juilliard Dance Division also presents programs in Lincoln Center's Clark Theater, and in venues throughout the metropolitan region, including New York City public schools.