Lar Lubovitch. Photo: NYC Dance Project.

The American Dance Festival (ADF) announced today that it will present the 2016 Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement to Lar Lubovitch. Established in 1981 by Samuel H. Scripps, the annual award honors choreographers who have dedicated their lives and talent to the creation of modern dance. Lubovitch's work, acclaimed throughout the world, is renowned for its musicality, emotional style, highly technical choreography, and deeply humanistic voice. The award will be presented to Lubovitch in a brief ceremony on Monday, July 11th at 7:00pm, prior to Lar Lubovitch Dance Company's performance at the Durham Performing Arts Center.

"We are exceptionally delighted to honor Lar Lubovitch with this award. For decades, his breathtaking work has drawn audiences with its big, full-bodied, fluid movement, and year after year, he continues to draw the best dancers in the industry to perform his gorgeous works," stated ADF Director Jodee Nimerichter.

Founded in 1934, ADF is an international magnet for choreographers, dancers, teachers, students, critics, musicians, and scholars to learn and create in a supportive environment. ADF has been presenting the best in modern dance for 83 years.

Over the past 35 years, the Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award has been presented to Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Hanya Holm, Alwin Nikolais, Katherine Dunham, Alvin Ailey, Erick Hawkins, Twyla Tharp, Anna Sokolow, Donald McKayle, Talley Beatty, Trisha Brown, Meredith Monk, Anna Halprin, Fayard and Harold Nicholas, Pina Bausch, Pilobolus, Garth Fagan, Maguy Marin, Eiko and Koma, Bill T. Jones, Murray Louis, Mark Morris, Laura Dean, Ohad Naharin, Martha Clarke, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, William Forsythe, Lin Hwai-min, Anjelin Preljocaj, and posthumously in honor of Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, José Limón, Pearl Primus, and Helen Tamiris.

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Men's Stories: A Concerto in Ruin. Photo: Rose Eichembaum.

On July 11 & 12 at the American Dance Festival, the Lubovitch company will present a program featuring 5 of his greatest works. Each program will include excerpts from Scriabin Dances (1977), North Star (1978), Concerto Six Twenty-Two (1986), and Othello, A Dance in Three Acts (1997), as well as the complete master work, Men’s Stories: A Concerto in Ruin (2000).

According to Dance Magazine, “’Men’s Stories’ has become a signature work for Lubovitch, and rightly so. This dark, haunting vision condenses several qualities – athleticism; fluidity and feminity; the closed-door clubbiness of a guild – into a delirious pageant of virtuosity. [The dancers strike] an ideal balance between maturity – not age, but life experience – and technical brilliance, both keys to Lubovitch’s art.” “Visually stunning and beautifully danced, the piece keeps its emotional secrets but provokes queries to resolve, as we each feel them.” The New York Times likewise summed up the work by saying: “‘Men’s Stories’ is a plush, satisfying work” and one that achieves a “choreographic ideal."

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