Doug Varone: Lux (2006)

Choreography: Doug Varone

Music: Philip Glass, The Light

Costumes: Liz Prince

Original Lighting Design: Robert Wierzel

Performers (In order of appearance): Alex Springer, Hollis Bartlett, Xan Burley, Casey Loomis, Ryan Yamauchi, Hsiao Jou Tang, Jake Bone, Aya Wilson

LUX premiered on October 19, 2006 in San Luis Obispo, CA and was solely commissioned by the Daniel and Dianne Vapnek Family Fund. It was created, in part, while in residence at Summerdance, Santa Barbara, CA.

Doug Varone is a choreographer of contemporary dance for the concert stage, as well as opera, Broadway, regional theater, and film. He is the Artistic Director of Doug Varone and Dancers which he established in 1986 as an opportunity to explore and process his particular choreographic vision. Doug Varone has become known for his emotionally charged, animated, and distinctive movement style. His incredible ability to tell a non-literal story can be seen in his solo The Fabulist (2014), in which he illustrates the confidence experienced in youth and the vulnerability that comes with aging. Captivated by detail, he is also known for site-specific works, like The Bottomland (2008), which was set in the Mammoth Caves of Kentucky, and featured in PBS's Dance in America series. Commissions include the Limón Company, Hubbard Street, and Batsheva Dance Company. He received an OBIE Award (2006), multiple NEFA National Dance Project grants, a Guggenheim Fellowship (1996), and two individual Bessie Awards (1998, 2007). He is currently on faculty at Purchase College, and the company is in residency at the 92nd Street Y. He received a new commission from the American Dance Festival, which premiered in July 2015, and was recent recipient of their Doris Duke Award.

Liz Lerman: What It’s Been Like: Choreography as a Way of Life

Liz Lerman is a choreographer, performer, writer, educator and speaker, and the recipient of numerous honors, including a 2002 MacArthur "Genius Grant" Fellowship and a 2011 United States Artists Ford Fellowship in Dance. A key aspect of her artistry is opening her process to various publics from shipbuilders to physicists, construction workers to ballerinas, resulting in both research and outcomes that are participatory, relevant, urgent, and usable by others. She founded Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in 1976 and cultivated the company's unique multi-generational ensemble into a leading force in contemporary dance until 2011. She was recently an artist-in-residence and visiting lecturer at Harvard University, and her current work Healing Wars is touring across the US. Liz conducts residencies on the Critical Response Process, creative research, the intersection of art and science, and the building of narrative within dance performance at such institutions as Yale School of Drama, Wesleyan University, University of Maryland - College Park, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the National Theatre Studio, among many others. Her collection of essays, Hiking the Horizontal: Field Notes from a Choreographer, was published in 2011 by Wesleyan University Press and released in paperback in 2014.

Alice Teirstein: Journey

Choreography/Performers: Young Dancemakers Company 2015

Artistic Director: Alice Teirstein

Music: Steve Reich

Costumes: By the Performers

Performers: Tyshawn Blount, Nia Bradley, Solomon Cort, Anakeiry Cruz, Reyna Guerra, Jael Harriott, Fahrod Jacelon, Madeleine Lee, Jaidah Mcintosh, Leah Moses, Genesis Perdomo, Jada Pope, Idania Quezada, Venus Scantlebury, Tiyana Smith, Dana Tillyard, Thea Zalabak

Alice Teirstein is a New York dancer, choreographer and award-winning dance educator, including a “Bessie," for distinguished service to the field of dance. This fall she was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York State Dance Education Association. As a choreographer/dancer, Alice has created and performed in numerous concerts produced at major dance venues in and out of New York City, including Jacobs Pillow, New York's Dance Theater Workshop, Symphony Space, Joyce Soho, NYU Lowe Theater, Danspace at St. Marks, 92Y, Marymount Manhattan Theater, La Mama ETC, among others. She was a choreographer-in-residence for three seasons at The Yard, in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Her choreography was presented annually in NYC parks as part of Midsummer Dances, a free summer concert series, which she co-founded in 1984 with grant awards from NYSCA and DCA. She was a Co-Artistic Director of the former Nimbus Dance Theater Company, with Erin Martin and the late Jack Moore. Alice is Founding Director of Young Dancemakers Company, a unique, totally free summer dance ensemble of NYC teens, now entering its 21st season, dedicated to nurturing the creation of original teen choreography, with performances of free touring concerts city-wide, for audiences of up to 2000 young people and adults each season, all made possible by generous foundation grants. Company members are selected annually by audition, drawn from throughout the NYC public high schools. Alice welcomes Jessica Gaynor as YDC Associate Director.

Alice designed and developed the dance curriculum for grades 7-12 at the Fieldston School, where she served on the faculty for over 3 decades, leading the dance program and designing its touring Fieldston Dance Company. She has served as co-director of the 92Y's Young Masters Repertory Ensemble, with Jessica Nicoll, and on the dance faculty of the Mid-Westchester Y.

She has led workshops for dance teachers for the NYC Dept. of Education, the 92Y Dance Educators Lab (DEL). Her college teaching has included Adelphi, Lehman, and Ramapo Colleges. She is a Teaching Artist for the Dance Theater of Harlem's outreach program, Dancing Through Barriers. MA in Dance Education, Columbia University.