he Library of Congress has acquired the papers of choreographer Garth Fagan and Garth Fagan Dance, the corporate based by Fagan in 1970. Garth Fagan Dance is distinguished by the inventive creativeness and polyrhythmic motion of Jamaican-born Fagan, layered with the self-discipline and power of ballet coaching. The corporate has carried out in additional than 660 cities in 24 international locations on six continents.
As broadly as the corporate has toured, many individuals have encountered Fagan’s identify on Broadway by his fascinating Tony Award-winning choreography for Disney’s beloved “The Lion King.” With audiences totaling greater than 100 million folks throughout its 25 years on Broadway – together with 25 world productions and a Broadway-sanctioned tour – the stay performances of “The Lion King” make Fagan probably the most seen Black choreographer of all time.
“Garth Fagan’s footprint on dance has left a legacy that can by no means be forgotten; his work is a real celebration of Black tradition,” stated Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden. “The archives of his firm, Garth Fagan Dance, can be a treasured addition to the Library’s performing arts collections.”
Fagan was born Might 3, 1940, in Kingston, Jamaica. His modern dance firm merged the power of ballet with the innovation of recent dance and the rhythms and motion of Afro-Caribbean tradition. Fagan has acquired numerous awards and honors along with his 1998 Tony Award for Greatest Choreography, together with a Bessie Award for Sustained Achievement and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Fagan is the recipient of honorary doctorates from The Julliard College, the College of Rochester and Hobart and William Smith Faculties.
Supplies documenting Fagan’s legacy within the assortment embrace pictures, packages, posters, correspondence, audio and visible recordings, artistic and educating notes, and documentation of the actions of Garth Fagan Dance. Highlights embrace photographs of Fagan, from a young person dancing in Jamaica within the Fifties to footage of him within the artistic course of from 1990 by 2023; full recordings of seminal works like “Prelude,” “Griot New York,” “Woza” and “From Earlier than”; and Fagan’s handwritten rehearsal notes from main productions. Underneath the Library’s stewardship, Fagan’s artistic and administrative papers will turn into publicly accessible for the primary time and be safeguarded for future generations.
“I’m inspired, excited, and energized that the historical past of my life’s work, Garth Fagan Dance, constructed on a Black-created dance vocabulary, Fagan Approach, has touched greater than a 100 million souls globally and can be preserved, in perpetuity, on the Library of Congress,” Fagan stated.
“Fagan’s appreciation of music worldwide, classical and modern, contributes to the exceptional and extremely participating repertory,” stated Sue Vita, chief of the Library’s Music Division. “The connection between dance and music in his choreography makes it particularly becoming that the Library’s Music Division, the world’s largest music library, would be the archival residence for his assortment.”
Situated in Rochester, New York, Garth Fagan Dance had ready to rejoice its fiftieth anniversary in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic shuttered these plans, and Fagan and govt director William Ferguson II rapidly pivoted to actions that will safeguard their dancers however advance their legacy. By 2021, with dance transferring to a digital presence to outlive the cancelations of stay occasions, the corporate had launched a working partnership with Rochester Institute of Expertise. A efficiency from this partnership was chosen to launch “NY Pops UP,” the governor of New York’s initiative to reinvigorate the impacted leisure business.
Throughout his work for “The Lion King,” Fagan enlisted the help of two of his firm’s principal dancers, Norwood Pennewell and Natalie Rogers-Cropper, to assist audition, practice and rehearse solid. Each proceed to bounce with the corporate, most lately throughout November performances at The Joyce in New York, a tribute to the Fagan coaching.
“Becoming a member of the annals with Dunham and Ailey, music greats like Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald and holographic music manuscripts written by Beethoven or Lizst or Mozart deeply strikes me,” Fagan stated. “I’m wondering what different completed Black persons are nonetheless not seen due to constructs that make us invisible. Born in Jamaica and equally a son of America, I’m proof that while you go searching, you could find an oasis of contribution residing among the many folks.”
The Garth Fagan Dance archives joins the collections of such dance luminaries as Martha Graham, Erick Hawkins, Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon, Alvin Ailey, Lester Horton, Bronislava Nijinska, Katherine Dunham and the American Ballet Theatre on the Library of Congress.
The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, providing entry to the artistic report of the US – and in depth supplies from world wide – each on-site and on-line. It’s the major analysis arm of the U.S. Congress ahe Library of Congress has acquired the papers of choreographer Garth Fagan and Garth Fagan Dance, the corporate based by Fagan in 1970. Garth Fagan Dance is distinguished by the inventive creativeness and polyrhythmic motion of Jamaican-born Fagan, layered with the self-discipline and power of ballet coaching. The corporate has carried out in additional than 660 cities in 24 international locations on six continents.
As broadly as the corporate has toured, many individuals have encountered Fagan’s identify on Broadway by his fascinating Tony Award-winning choreography for Disney’s beloved “The Lion King.” With audiences totaling greater than 100 million folks throughout its 25 years on Broadway – together with 25 world productions and a Broadway-sanctioned tour – the stay performances of “The Lion King” make Fagan probably the most seen Black choreographer of all time.
“Garth Fagan’s footprint on dance has left a legacy that can by no means be forgotten; his work is a real celebration of Black tradition,” stated Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden. “The archives of his firm, Garth Fagan Dance, can be a treasured addition to the Library’s performing arts collections.”
Fagan was born Might 3, 1940, in Kingston, Jamaica. His modern dance firm merged the power of ballet with the innovation of recent dance and the rhythms and motion of Afro-Caribbean tradition. Fagan has acquired numerous awards and honors along with his 1998 Tony Award for Greatest Choreography, together with a Bessie Award for Sustained Achievement and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Fagan is the recipient of honorary doctorates from The Julliard College, the College of Rochester and Hobart and William Smith Faculties.
Supplies documenting Fagan’s legacy within the assortment embrace pictures, packages, posters, correspondence, audio and visible recordings, artistic and educating notes, and documentation of the actions of Garth Fagan Dance. Highlights embrace photographs of Fagan, from a young person dancing in Jamaica within the Fifties to footage of him within the artistic course of from 1990 by 2023; full recordings of seminal works like “Prelude,” “Griot New York,” “Woza” and “From Earlier than”; and Fagan’s handwritten rehearsal notes from main productions. Underneath the Library’s stewardship, Fagan’s artistic and administrative papers will turn into publicly accessible for the primary time and be safeguarded for future generations.
“I’m inspired, excited, and energized that the historical past of my life’s work, Garth Fagan Dance, constructed on a Black-created dance vocabulary, Fagan Approach, has touched greater than a 100 million souls globally and can be preserved, in perpetuity, on the Library of Congress,” Fagan stated.
“Fagan’s appreciation of music worldwide, classical and modern, contributes to the exceptional and extremely participating repertory,” stated Sue Vita, chief of the Library’s Music Division. “The connection between dance and music in his choreography makes it particularly becoming that the Library’s Music Division, the world’s largest music library, would be the archival residence for his assortment.”
Situated in Rochester, New York, Garth Fagan Dance had ready to rejoice its fiftieth anniversary in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic shuttered these plans, and Fagan and govt director William Ferguson II rapidly pivoted to actions that will safeguard their dancers however advance their legacy. By 2021, with dance transferring to a digital presence to outlive the cancelations of stay occasions, the corporate had launched a working partnership with Rochester Institute of Expertise. A efficiency from this partnership was chosen to launch “NY Pops UP,” the governor of New York’s initiative to reinvigorate the impacted leisure business.
Throughout his work for “The Lion King,” Fagan enlisted the help of two of his firm’s principal dancers, Norwood Pennewell and Natalie Rogers-Cropper, to assist audition, practice and rehearse solid. Each proceed to bounce with the corporate, most lately throughout November performances at The Joyce in New York, a tribute to the Fagan coaching.
“Becoming a member of the annals with Dunham and Ailey, music greats like Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald and holographic music manuscripts written by Beethoven or Lizst or Mozart deeply strikes me,” Fagan stated. “I’m wondering what different completed Black persons are nonetheless not seen due to constructs that make us invisible. Born in Jamaica and equally a son of America, I’m proof that while you go searching, you could find an oasis of contribution residing among the many folks.”
The Garth Fagan Dance archives joins the collections of such dance luminaries as Martha Graham, Erick Hawkins, Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon, Alvin Ailey, Lester Horton, Bronislava Nijinska, Katherine Dunham and the American Ballet Theatre on the Library of Congress.
The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, providing entry to the artistic report of the US – and in depth supplies from world wide – each on-site and on-line. It’s the major analysis arm of the U.S. Congress a