An Evening with Lydia Johnson Dance

Darien, CT

March 15, 2025

The Darien Arts Center is delighted to present An Evening with Lydia Johnson Dance with new and repertory works on Saturday, March 15, 2025, at 7:00pm at The Weatherstone Studio Theater. This marks Lydia Johnson Dance (LJD)’s second engagement at the Theater. LJD, based in New York City, will present a visually and emotionally evocative performance, featuring two repertory works and this year’s world premiere, Legacy, set to music by Terry Riley. All pieces showcase the company’s distinct choreographic style.

Known for seamlessly weaving components of ballet into a contemporary dance vocabulary, LJD has garnered consistent praise from esteemed publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Backstage Magazine, Dance View Times and Oberon’s Grove. Most recently, LJD was featured in Dance Informa, leading up to the company’s 25th anniversary in 2024. Writer Renata Ogayar noted, “Over the years, Lydia Johnson’s vision has evolved and Johnson has built a distinctive repertoire known for its emotional depth, fluid movement and profound connection to music.”

Lydia Johnson's choreography captures the depth and spirit of the human struggle, characterized by an underlying sense of drama within predominantly abstract qualities.

Works on the program include Summer House (2011), with music by Philip Glass, a chamber piece which fuses memories of relationships past with the present, creating an emotional journey for the audience. LJD will also present For Eli (2022), which was commissioned by visual artist Laura Lou Levy in honor of her son, Eli, and set to five Chopin pieces.

The premiere, Legacy, is set to an arrangement of minimalist composer Terry Riley’s IN C (1964), and features a central trio and four young dancers from the LJD School. After the company premiered Legacy at the Graham Studio Theater this past December, dance critic Philip Gardner wrote in Oberon’s Grove, “I immediately recognized it as one of Lydia’s masterpieces, not least because of the unexpected allure of the music. There’s a narrative here, but a subtle one. The choreography sings of the joys of parenting, of the innocence of children, and of the timeless rituals of friendships and families.”

The performance will feature the four young students and nine professional dancers, many of whom also teach at the LJD School, which not only teaches technique but also has a strong emphasis on child-created choreography. Johnson has been both a Finalist and received a Fellowship at New Jersey State Council on the Arts for her own choreography.

Marina Harss of The New Yorker comments, “Johnson is a craftsman and a poet; her works, which stress the ensemble and attend closely to the music, have an ebb and flow in addition to a strong emotional current. The basis of her technique is ballet, and her dancers are strong."

Jerry Hochman of Critical Dance wrote: “Johnson’s piece eliminates overt emotional response to a death without disregarding it, and distills the movement to its essence. So simplified, Johnson converts a worthy, but tired subject into a thing of simple truth and transcendent beauty."

Brian Seibert of The New York Times wrote: "What seems to count most for Ms. Johnson is music. The four pieces...all showed uncommon skill at matching ballet movement to music, both at the large scale of structure and in small, felicitous details. Her orchestration of bodies, adding and subtracting, followed the texture of the music wonderfully, coordinating closely with each score's formal drama."

Join us for an evening of dance that promises to be a celebration of artistry, emotion and the enduring power of movement.

Tickets: $30 per person, $15 for students

Purchase your tickets HERE

For press inquiries, interviews or additional information, please contact:

Lola Knadler | Marketing & Communications Coordinator at The Darien Arts Center

Email: Lola@darienarts.org

Phone: (203) 655-8683