Tony Award-Winning Choreographer to Bring Garth Fagan Dance to Center for the Arts

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The UB Center for the Arts will open the 2002-03 KeyBank Dance Series with a performance by Garth Fagan Dance at 8 p.m. Oct. 12 in the Mainstage Theatre in the Center for the Arts on the UB North (Amherst) Campus. Media sponsors for The KeyBank Dance Series are WGRZ-TV Channel 2 and soft rock favorites-96.1, WJYE-FM.

Garth Fagan, Tony Award-winning choreographer of Broadway's The Lion King, has been called "a true original," "a genuine leader," and "one of the great reformers of American dance."

Fagan, a Distinguished University Professor of the State University of New York College at Brockport, is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1996 he was named one of only 25 American scholars, artists, professionals and public figures to receive the title Fulbright 50th Anniversary Distinguished Fellow. He has been awarded the prestigious three-year Choreography Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and holds honorary doctorates from several prestigious universities.

Fagan has received two coveted awards in recognition of his contribution to modern dance: the Dance Magazine Award for "significant contributions to dance during a distinguished career" and the "Bessie" Award (New York Dance and Performance Award) for Sustained Achievement. In 1996, Fagan was chosen to choreograph Walt Disney Theatrical Productions' new musical The Lion King, for which he received the prestigious 1998 Tony Award for Best Choreography. In addition, he received the 1998 Drama Desk Award, 1998 Outer Critics Circle Award, 1998 Astaire Award and 2000 Sir Laurence Oliver Award.

Fagan's singular dance language draws on many sources: he likes the sense of weight in modern dance, the torso-centered movement and energy of Afro-Caribbean tradition, the speed and precision of ballet, and the rule-breaking experimentation of the post-moderns.

His own dance company, Garth Fagan Dance, is the embodiment of his innovative movement style, and he sets at least one new work on the company each year. Garth Fagan Dance is at the top of its profession; the company's dancers are renowned for their individuality; their natural, unstylized approach, and their sheer physical virtuosity. Their distinctive movement quality comes from years of training in Fagan Technique, the teaching method Garth Fagan developed hand-in-hand with his own dance vocabulary when he started the ensemble in 1970.

Garth Fagan Dance tours extensively each year; in addition to the many major U.S. venues that have hosted it, the company has performed at numerous prestigious festivals and in more than 10 countries.

Tickets for Garth Fagan Dance are $20, $16 and $12 for the general public and $10 for UB students. Discount coupons are available at all area KeyBank locations. Tickets are available from noon to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday in the Center Box Office and at all Ticketmaster locations, including Kaufmann's. To charge tickets, call 852-5000; in Canada, call 416-870-8000. For group sales, call 645-6771. For more information, call 645-ARTS or visit the Web site at http://www.arts.buffalo.edu. The Center for the Arts is a Ticketfast location.