Lar Lubovitch

Lar Lubovitch is one of America’s most versatile, popular, and widely seen choreographers. The New York City based Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, founded in 1968, has performed around the world. Lubovitch's dances have also been performed by many other major companies, including American Ballet Theatre, Joffrey Ballet, New York City Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. His dances are renowned for their musicality, rhapsodic style, and sophisticated formal structures. Lubovitch’s radiant, highly technical choreography and deeply humanistic voice have been acclaimed worldwide. His dances on film include Othello (broadcast throughout the United States on PBS’s Great Performances and nominated for an Emmy Award), Fandango (winner of an International Emmy Award), and My Funny Valentine for the Robert Altman film The Company (for which Lubovitch was nominated for an American Choreography Award). 

Lubovitch has also made a notable contribution to choreography in the field of ice-dancing, having created dances for Olympic skaters John Curry, Dorothy Hamill, Peggy Fleming, Brian Orser, JoJo Starbuck, and Paul Wylie. He choreographed two ice-dances for television: The Sleeping Beauty (PBS) and The Planets (A&E, nominated for an International Emmy Award, a Cable Ace Award, and a Grammy Award). 

His work on Broadway includes Into the Woods (Tony Award nomination), The Red Shoes (Astaire Award), and the Tony Award-winning revival of The King and I. 

In 2007, Lubovitch created the Chicago Dancing Festival, launched in collaboration with the City of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art. For 10 seasons, the festival presented free performances in downtown Chicago, featuring a national roster of leading American dance companies. 

In 2011, Lubovitch was named a Ford Fellow by United States Artists and received the Dance/USA Honors Award. In 2012, his dance Crisis Variations was awarded the Prix Benois de la Danse for outstanding choreography at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. In 2013, the American Dance Guild honored him with a lifetime achievement award, and in 2014 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by The Juilliard School in New York City. In 2016, he received the Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement and the Dance Magazine Award.  

Lubovitch has been named one of America’s “Irreplaceable Dance Treasures” by the Dance Heritage Coalition.