Garth Fagan Dance Company defies gravity at Quick Center for the Arts | Press Releases

Image: Garth Fagan Dance Company The Garth Fagan Dance Company, whose namesake won a Tony award for choreographing the broadway hit "The Lion King," will combine modern dance, Afro-Caribbean movement, ballet and rule-breaking experimentation on Saturday, Feb. 17 at 8 p.m. when they take the stage in Fairfield University's Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts. The dynamic program also includes a collaboration with Wynton Marsalis' new work, "Trips and Trysts."

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 the Fagan technique, the teaching method that Fagan, the company's founder and artistic director, developed hand-in-hand with his own dance vocabulary when he started the ensemble in 1970.

Fagan's singular dance language draws on many sources: he likes the sense of weight in modern dance, the torso-centered movement and energy of Afro-Caribbean, the speed and precision of ballet and the truthfulness of the post-moderns. The company's dancers are renowned for their individuality, unmannered approach and virtuosity.

In addition to the Tony Award for his path-breaking choreography for "The Lion King," Fagan also received the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award and the Astaire Award. Fagan is a Distinguished University Professor of the State University of New York and teaches at the State University of New York at Brockport. He is the recipient of the Fulbright 50th Anniversary Distinguished Fellow title, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the prestigious Choreography Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

A native of Jamaica, Fagan received that country's highest honor, a Special Gold Musgrave Medal, for his "Contribution to the World of Dance and Dance Theater." He has received honorary doctorate degrees from the Juilliard School, the University of Rochester, Nazareth College of Rochester and Hobart and William Smith Colleges and the Arts Achievement Award from his alma mater, Wayne State University.

Tickets to the performance are $38, $33, and $28 with discounts available for seniors, students and groups. A post-show "Art to Heart" question and answer session is planned. For tickets or information, call (203) 254-4010 or toll free at 1-877-ARTS-396.