Courtesy photoLPAC News:
SANTA FE ― The Lensic presents L.A. Dance Project, Tuesday, Nov. 14, led by choreographer and dancer Benjamin Millepied (New York City Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Black Swan).
L.A. Dance Project is making an impact on the dance world with its innovative approach to art and movement. Performing adventurous new works along with seminal works from influential choreographers, the company is creating “a defining artistic vision for our time,” says the Los Angeles Times.
At The Lensic, L.A. Dance Project will present four diverse pieces, three of them choreographed by Millepied.
L.A. DANCE PROJECT
L.A. Dance Project was founded in 2012 by Millepied, along with composers Nico Muhly and Nicholas Brittel, art consultant Matthieu Humery and founding producer Charles Fabius.
The company’s mission is to create new work and to revive important collaborations from influential dance makers. Programs include full-length evenings in traditional theater venues as well as site-specific performances in nontraditional environments. New works by the company are multidisciplinary collaborations with visual artists, musicians, designers, film directors, and composers. L.A. Dance Project also promotes the work of emerging and established creators, contributing to new platforms for dance.
L.A. Dance Project has commissioned dances by Justin Peck, Roy Assaf, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Gerard & Kelly, Benjamin Millepied, Emanuel Gat, and Hiroaki Umeda, and art for the stage from Mark Bradford, Liam Gillick, Barbara Kruger, Christopher Wool, Sterling Ruby, and costume designers Rodarte and Alessandro Sartori. The company has created site-specific works at MOCA Los Angeles, the Gardens of Versailles, The Glass House in Connecticut, and Schindler house in Los Angeles. In 2013, L.A. Dance Project partnered with opera company The industry to create Invisible Cities, the award-winning opera in Los Angeles’s Union Station.
In 2016, the company announced a three-year partnership with the renowned Joyce Theater in New York City, as well as a multi-year residency at LUMA Arles, Parc des Ateliers, Arles, a multidisciplinary arts center initiated by the LUMA Foundation Arles. L.A. Dance Project is the 2017/18 Company-in-Residence at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles.
About Benjamin Millepied, Artistic Director
Benjamin Millepied is a French dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker. Before cofounding L.A. Dance Project, he was a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, from 1995 to 2011. He served as artistic director at the Paris Opera Ballet from 2014 to 2016. Millepied’s many ballets are in the repertory of major dance companies around the world, including American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, The Mariinksy Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Berlin Staastsoper, Lyon Opera Ballet, and Dutch National Ballet, and he choreographed the solo “Years Later” for Mikhail Baryshnikov in 2008. In 2010, Millepied choreographed and starred in the award-winning film Black Swan. In 2018, he will make his directorial feature debut with the film musical Carmen.
Millepied is a recipient of the Prix de Lausanne, the Mae L. Win Award, the USA Artists fellowship, and a Chevalier in the order of Arts and Letters.
Tickets: $55-$79. Available at Lensic.org, 505.988.1234 or the Lensic’s Tickets Santa Fe Box Office at 211 W. San Francisco Street, Santa Fe.