Lydia Johnson Dance's 2023 New York Season with Guest, MaliQ Williams
Company:
Lydia Johnson Dance X MaliQ Williams
LYDIA JOHNSON DANCE IN 2023 NEW YORK SEASON
FEATURING GUEST ARTIST MALIQ WILLIAMS
November 11 & 12 - Saturday at 7 PM; Sunday at 3 PM
Graham Studio Theater, 55 Bethune Street, 11th floor
Tickets: $35; $20 students & dancers
Reservations: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/lydiajohnsondance/1018089
"Johnson is adept at capturing the beauty and pathos in music - her musical
choices are well considered, and it's clear that she really 'feels' the emotion
contained in the notes. She translates harmony and texture into a narrative
of human intimacy and empathy."
— Marina Harss, critic/author
Lydia Johnson Dance presents its 2023 New York Season at the Graham Studio Theater, Westbeth Building, 55 Bethune St., 11th Floor, Saturday, November 11 at 7:30pm, and Sunday, November 12 at 3pm. The season will feature a premiere for ten dancers, including Guest Artist MaliQ Williams, former member of the Mark Morris Dance Group, who will appear in two ballets on the program. It also brings back 2022’s For Eli, commissioned by Visual Artist Laura Levy as a memorial to her son Eli, and set to five Chopin pieces.
“For Eli is shattering, and one of the finest new dances I’ve seen since the pandemic ended.”
~Jerry Hochman, Critical Dance
The season will also include 2013’s Night of the Flying Horses, set to Osvaldo Golijov’s piece of the same name. The work for eight dancers is anchored by a central pas de deux danced this season by MaliQ Williams and LJD Principal Laura Di Orio. Largely an abstract work, Night of the Flying Horses, like all of Ms. Johnson’s works, resonates with a deep sense of the human struggle.
“Night of the Flying Horses is filled with sublime imagery, moments of the dance I can still see in my mind’s eye. It’s a beautiful and emotional work, a dance that stays with you long after you have seen it…. Ms. Johnson reached in and pulled Night of the Flying Horses from her heart.” ~Darrell Wood, NYC Dance Stuff
“In Night of the Flying Horses, Lydia Johnson has taken the complexities of an unusual score – with its elements of folk-dance, tango, dreamy adagio, angelic voices and pulsating rhythms – and transformed it into a broad canvas of movement which entices the eye just as the music ravishes the ear.” ~Philip Gardner, Oberon’s Grove
About Lydia Johnson:
Originally from Massachusetts, Lydia Johnson trained in New York on scholarship at The Ailey School as well as with members of Twyla Tharp’s company including Sara Rudner. After an injury, she began to choreograph, working with one dancer in a studio space in the then mostly vacant far West Village.
Her choreography has been woven into her life as a working mother as she has juggled her artistry with both financial need and being with her three children. Her early pieces were shown in lofts and downtown studios. She founded a choreographers’ collective at the Cunningham studio (now the Graham studio) in order to help choreographers afford the cost of performances.
Beginning in 1999, she founded LJD as a nonprofit and worked consistently in various studios developing a vocabulary that includes emotional gestures, a sense of the human story and is deeply linked to music. Her love of Balanchine’s works led to partnerships with Deborah Wingert, who sets his works nationally, becoming the LJD Ballet Mistress, and recently with Craig Hall (former NYCB dancer and current Ballet Master) performing with LJD as a Guest Artist. LJD has had recent Guest Artists from NYCB, ABT, Paul Taylor, Mark Morris and other companies.
Ms. Johnson recently developed a new work at a Residency for her company at Kaatsbaan when it was under the Directorship of Stella Abrera.
Photo by Julie Lemberger
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