92Y Harkness Dance Center in Celebration of Its 75th Anniversary
The video above showcases highlights from a mini-documentary produced by Thirteen WNET New York featuring the Harkness Dance Center in celebration of its 75th anniversary, and airing this Sunday March 8th at 12pm on television. Since 1935, the 92nd Street Y has been a historic home of modern dance, nurturing the talents of such dance pioneers as Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, Anna Sokolow, Hanya Holm, Alvin Ailey, Merce Cunningham, Robert Joffrey, Pearl Primus and Lester Horton. These artists created, performed and taught at the Y, building the foundation for contemporary dance as we know it.
Among other highlights in the video, we hear Sharon Gersten Luckman, the Executive Director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, excitedly exclaiming: “If I mention the 92nd Street Y in any context, people say that’s where it started.” David Parsons, Artistic Director and Founder of Parsons Dance, recounts one of the world’s most famous reviews of dance when Louis Horst reviewed a performance at the 92Y in 1957 by Paul Taylor, Parson’s biggest influence, a review that consisted solely of four inches of blank space, signed L.H.
As well, in celebration and support of dance in New York City, the Harkness Dance Center continues to invite the community to attend affordable and free performances via our Sundays at Three Dance Previews, where you can preview performances of new and reconstructed works by emerging and established choreographers, and the free Fridays at Noon showings, mixed-bill events focusing on the process of creating choreography where three to four choreographers show finished or in-progress choreography with audience discussion following each work.
