CALARTS PLUCKS DANCE HEAD FROM NEW YORK CITY.Byline: Daily News VALENCIA - Stephan Koplowitz has been appointed the new dean of the CalArts' Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance, taking over a program boosted by a new endowment, professional space at the Los Angeles Music Center The Music Center (officially named the Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County) is one of the three largest performing arts centers in the nation. Located in downtown Los Angeles, the Music Center is home to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Ahmanson Theater, Mark Taper and a new partnership with the theater school. Koplowitz, a choreographer cho·re·o·graph v. cho·re·o·graphed, cho·re·o·graph·ing, cho·re·o·graphs v.tr. 1. To create the choreography of: choreograph a ballet. 2. and educator based in New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. for the past 23 years, will come to the California Institute of the Arts California Institute of the Arts known as CalArts U.S. private institution of higher learning in Valencia. Created in 1961 through the merger of two other art institutes, it was the first in the U.S. in Valencia on Aug. 1, CalArts President Steven D. Lavine said Monday. Koplowitz is well-known in the contemporary dance world for concert performances, theater and public-site work as well as education, community arts and multimedia production. His appointment comes as CalArts celebrates a new endowment for its dance school and the emergence of its downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area. The sprawling, multi-centered megacity is such that its downtown core is often considered just another district like Hollywood or professional space - the Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater at the Music Center. It also coincides with the reconfiguration of the CalArts Theater School's professional production arm as the Center for New Performance, which will now also collaborate with the schools of music and dance. ``The tools are in place. We only await Stephan's leadership,'' Lavine said. ``As a choreographer, he is hitting the sweet spot of a wonderful career and he is a born teacher/educator.'' Lavine said Koplowitz had taken up a one-week residence at CalArts in 2004 as part of his Alpert Award for the Arts fellowship. During that time he created a piece that involved every dance student - undergraduate and graduate - at CalArts. ``We are all ready to work with Stephan to develop a program responsive to the conditions of dance today,'' Lavine said. ``This will be a turning point, mostly for CalArts, but for dance in Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, generally.'' Koplowitz is best known for creating large-scale performances for architecturally compelling and challenging spaces. Sites for his work have included London's British Library British Library, national library of Great Britain, located in London. Long a part of the British Museum, the library collection originated in 1753 when the government purchased the Harleian Library, the library of Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, and groups of manuscripts. and Natural History Museum, the windows of New York's Grand Central Terminal, Union Station in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. and a coal processing plant in Essen, Germany. ``Whether I am choreographing for a site or the stage, I am influenced by my environment and my community,'' Koplowitz said. ``The fact that Los Angeles faces Asia and borders on Mexico offers a new perspective on my world. ``This, in combination with the richness and intensity of the artistic community at CalArts, provides exciting possibilities for developing work and collaborations. Although I am moving to the Los Angeles area, I feel that CalArts is its own city within a city - with its own culture, resources and links to other cultures around the globe.'' CAPTION(S): photo Photo: (ran in AV edition only) KOPLOWITZ |
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