EISEMANN CENTER PRESENTS
GARTH FAGAN DANCE FOR ONE PERFORMANCE ONLY
FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 2006 AT 8 PM

RICHARDSON, TX – GARTH FAGAN DANCE, now in its 35th anniversary season, is at the top of its profession. The company’s dancers are renowned for their individuality, unique approach and virtuosity. “The handsome, exotic, completely concentrated Fagan dancers move as if they were born speaking Fagan’s language and they love the feel of it in their bodies,” wrote Elizabeth Kendall in Vogue. The Fagan company has been cited for its excellence and originality with a New York Governor’s Arts Award. Their distinctive movement quality comes from years of training in Fagan Technique, the teaching method Garth Fagan, company founder and artistic director, developed hand-in-hand with his own dance vocabulary when he started the ensemble in 1970. “The dancers he has trained,” said David Vaughan in Ballet Review, “are virtuosi, no doubt about it, and fearless too, able to sustain long adagio balances, to change direction in mid-air, to vary the dynamic of a turn, to stop on a dime.”

In 1993, GARTH FAGAN DANCE went on a national tour with the Wynton Marsalis Septet performing Fagan’s critically acclaimed evening-length work Griot New York. The company was seen nationally on the “Tonight Show” in that same piece and Griot New York aired worldwide on the PBS “Great Performances – Dance in America” series in the spring of 1995. The troupe has performed throughout the United States, Europe, Africa, Asia, the Near and Middle East, South America, New Zealand, Australia and the West Indies. Performances in New York City venues include frequent seasons at the Joyce Theater.

Garth Fagan’s achievements – the creation of the internationally acclaimed GARTH FAGAN DANCE, the company that fulfills his vision, and work as a guest choreographer, most recently and notably for Walt Disney’s The Lion King – have been recognized by a host of awards and honors. His singular dance language draws on many sources: sense of weight in modern dance, torso-centered movement and energy of Afro-Caribbean, speed and precision of ballet and the rule-breaking experimentation of the post-moderns. For his path-breaking choreography for The Lion King, Fagan was awarded the prestigious 1998 Tony Award for Best Choreography. He also received the 1998 Drama Desk Award, 1998 Outer Critics Circle Award, 1998 Astaire Award, 2000 Laurence Olivier Award, 2001 Ovation Award and the 2004 Helpmann Award for his work on the Broadway musical, which opened in fall 1997 to extraordinary critical praise.

Tickets for the Friday, January 13, 8:00 pm performance range from $20-$45 and are available online at www.eisemanncenter.com or by calling the Eisemann Center Ticket Office at 972-744-4650. Ticket Office hours are 10:00 am until 6:00 pm Monday through Saturday and one hour before performances. Group discounts are available for 10 or more persons by calling 972-744-4657. The Eisemann Center’s Prelude Café is open for pre-show dining for this performance. Reservations are recommended and can be made by calling 972-367-2000. A Master Class will be held January 12 at 4:00 pm for a $10 fee at Tuzer Dancenter at 410 No. Glenville in Richardson. Space is limited and reservations may be made by calling 972-744-4650. There will also be a Q&A after the performance with Mr. Fagan and the dancers.

GARTH FAGAN DANCE is supported by Mid-America Arts Alliance with generous underwriting by the National Endowment for the Arts, Texas Commission on the Arts, and foundations, corporations and individuals throughout Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas.

The Charles W. Eisemann Center is located at 2351 Performance Drive in Richardson, Texas. The Eisemann Center is easily accessible from Highway 75 North taking the Galatyn Parkway/Renner Road exit going north and the Galatyn Parkway/ Campbell Road exit going south or from the DART light rail station at Galatyn Park. Radio sponsor for this performance is WRR Classical 101.1 FM. Sponsors for the 2005-2006 Season include WFAA-TV/The Dallas Morning News and ticket sponsor The Renaissance Dallas-Richardson Hotel.