Paul Sanasardo: Disappearances (Premiere)

Choreography: Paul Sanasardo

Music: Webern, Varese, Messiaen

Costumes: Branimira

Dancers: Amy L. Roby, Christina D. Eltvedt, Buenaventura Costrejon

Paul Sanasardo was born in 1928 in Chicago, Illinois and grew up on the north side of the city near the Art Institute of Chicago, where he studied painting and sculpture. While in the army, Mr. Courtesy of Paul SanasardoSanasardo became a principal dancer for the Washington Dance Theater. In 1953 he joined the Anna Sokolow Dance Company in New York City. He was guest artist with the Pearl Lang Company and for an extended period partnered Miss Lang in concert. His dance training was guided by teachers such as Martha Graham, Antony Tudor and Mia Slavenska. In 1958 Mr. Sanasardo with Donya Feuer established their own school, Studio For Dance, and formed their first performing group with Pina Bausch as one of their principal members. Under the auspices of Modern Dance Artists, the Paul Sanasardo Dance Company was formed in 1963. Mr. Sanasardo has created over eighty-five dance works, many of them for other leading dance companies in the United States, Canada, and Europe. From 1969 to 1973 Paul Sanasardo was artistic director of the annual summer modern dance program at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs, NY. In 1977 he was invited to be artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company of Israel. During his tenure he premiered six works for the company and three full-length works for Israeli television. Mr. Sanasardo received a Guggenheim Fellowship for choreography in 1970. He has been a recipient of fellowships and grants from both the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts. Mr. Sanasardo is universally recognized as one of the leading teachers and exponents of modern dance, and is a guest lecturer at universities and colleges throughout the United States.

Jane Dudley: Harmonica Breakdown (1938)
& Time is Money (1934)

Harmonica Breakdown (1938)

Choreography: Jane Dudley

Music: Sonny Terry

Dancer: Sheron Wray

Time is Money (1934)

Choreography: Jane Dudley

Poem: Sol Funaroff Read by Margaret Klenck

Costumes: Jane Dudley

Lighting Design: Judith M Daitsman

Dancer: Martin Lofsnes

These performances are presented by permission from the Jane Dudley Estate and staged according to standards set forth by the Jane Dudley Estate.

Jane Dudley (born New York 3 April 1912; died London 19 September 2001) was educated at the Walden School and the University of North Carolina. Her dance training was with Hanya Holm at the Mary Wigman School from 1930-1935. By 1934, Jane had joined the New Dance Group, which performed in union halls and factories; her aim was to make dance accessible to a non-dance audience, and to offer material with a political orientation. Jane soon became president of the Group, a position she held until 1966. Jane Dudley was a member of the Martha Graham Company from 1937- 44 and continued to work with them as a guest artist. She assisted Graham at the Neighbourhood Playhouse School and taught at her studio. Her fellow- collaborators were the choreographer/dancers Doris Humphrey, José Limón and the composer Louis Horst. Her later work in the US was characterized by a focus on social issues, in works such as the 1946 ballet The Lonely Ones, rather than the overtly political. The red scare of the early postwar years affected the wider artistic community, and Dudley’s former husband, filmmaker Leo Hurwitz, was blacklisted. Jane was director of the New Dance Group Studio from 1950-1956. In the 1960s, she taught dance at Bennington College in Vermont, and was artistic director of Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company from 1968-69. After 1970, Jane based herself in London – a city she made home for the rest of her life. As one of the co-founders and the Director of Contemporary Dance Studies at the London Contemporary Dance School, her influence on British modern dance is immense. She continued to be actively involved with the school until 1998. As a freelance choreographer she also created work for Extemporary, Spiral and Phoenix Dance Companies during this period. Harmonica Breakdown was revived by London Contemporary Dance Theatre in 1988 to celebrate 50 years of Dudley’s dance-making. In Britain, Harmonica Breakdown has been performed by artists including Siobhan Davies and Kate Coyne, but has been most associated with Sheron Wray, whom Jane made custodian of the work following her death.

Linda Tarnay: Featured in From The Horse’s Mouth

Linda Tarnay (1943-2018) retired from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts after 35 years of teaching, including four years as Chair of the Dance Department. In a school-wide election, Tisch students chose Tarnay to receive the David Payne Carter Award for Teaching Excellence. A founding member of Dance Theater Workshop in 1965, Tarnay performed with Anna Sokolow, Lotte Goslar, Phyllis Lamhut and Jamie Cunningham, as well as in her own company, Linda Tarnay and Dancers. She has received choreography grants from NEA, NYSCA, and CAPS (Creative Artists Public Service Award.) She has worked as a dancing clown / magician and also re-created the roles of Doris Humphrey in New Dance and Charles Weidman’s Flickers. She has been artist-in-residence at the Yard and director of Transitions Dance Company in London. She taught at Bennington College, Connecticut College, Princeton University and at ADF for 16 summers and was honored with its Balasaraswati/Joy Ann Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching in 2007. Panelist, Fulbright Selection Committee, Princess Grace Awards.