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DANCE NEWS: New York City Center Celebrates NYC PRIDE with Encore Presentation of Lar Lubovitch’s "Concerto Six Twenty-Two"
New York City Center is celebrating NYC PRIDE with a free encore presentation of Lar Lubovitch’s enduring and timely male duet from Concerto Six Twenty-Two featuring NYCB principal dancers, and partners in real-life, Adrian Danchig-Waring and Joseph Gordon from the 2020 Fall for Dance Festival. The piece will be available to view on-demand through June 30 on City Center’s YouTube page and at NYCityCenter.org.
“In 1985, when the dance was created, the AIDS epidemic was upon us, and one of the emerging themes in this time of crisis was the depth of friendship expressed as friends helped friends to die. The dance essays the joyousness of the subject in its outer ensemble movements and its tenderness in the central adagio for two men.” —Choreographer Lar Lubovitch
Concerto Six Twenty-Two received its world premiere at Carnegie Hall on April 9, 1986. The duet was subsequently performed in October 1987 at the David H. Koch Theater (then called the New State Theater) at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts at “Dancing for Life,” the first-ever response to the AIDS crisis by the dance community. The event, conceived and initiated by Lubovitch, united 13 different companies to raise money for AIDS care, research, and education.
Although men dancing together has existed in modern dance almost from the beginning, Concerto Six Twenty-Two brought a new freedom of expression to this concept. While the piece does not tell a literal story, it does indelibly portray men as caring and supportive of one another. In the mid-80s, this aspect gave the piece a special resonance in the face of the AIDS crisis, even though its theme is timeless.
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Since its premiere, Concerto Six Twenty-Two has been filmed by the BBC and broadcast throughout the UK, and performed around the world both by the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company and by more than 20 other companies.
