Photo by Joseph Arthur

Sokolow Now! is the Anna Sokolow Archival Company. This premiere company is the most comprehensive company working within the Sokolow idiom. It is through this company that artistic director Lorry May perpetuates the Sokolow repertory and tradition. University dance departments who participate in residency and reconstruction projects with Lorry May and the Sokolow Dance Foundation can choose to have their students perform with Sokolow Now! in a main stage performance.Through its dedication to the Sokolow repertory, the company honors one of the most innovative, dynamic and influential choreographers of her time.

The Sokolow Dance Foundation, established in 2003, is the only institution dedicated to the continuation of the extraordinary legacy of Anna Sokolow. It is through preservation, education, and presentation that the Sokolow Dance Foundation aims to perpetuate the Sokolow legacy for future generations.

For more information, please visit: http://www.annasokolow.org/index.html

Anna Sokolow contributed to the world of modern dance for nearly seven decades. She continued to shape contemporary dance with ground-breaking choreography up until her death in March, 2000 at the age of ninety.

Known as one of the most dynamic and uncompromising of the modern dance choreographers, Sokolow began her career as a dancer with Martha Graham. In the early thirties, she studied choreography with Louis Horst at the Neighborhood Playhouse, and she quickly became his assistant and his most outstanding composition student.

Sokolow has had a profound effect on the course of modern dance throughout the world. In addition to choreographing for her own renowned New York company, Players' Project, her works are in the repertories of Ballet Independiente, Bat-Dor, Berlin Ballet, London Contemporary Dance Theatre, Netherlands Dance Theatre, and the Royal Winnepeg Ballet. She has also had a direct influence on such artists as Alvin Ailey, Pina Bausch, and Martha Clarke.

But one can not describe the remarkable career of Anna Sokolow without mentioning her contributions to the theater. Her choreography for the Broadway stage includes Street Scene (1947), Regina (1949), and Candide (1956); and in 1967, she created the original dances for the Off-Broadway production of Hair.

She also taught movement for actors at The Actors Studio (where she was a founding member), the Lincoln Center Repertory Theatre School, and the HB Studio. Among her students were Richard Boone, Faye Dunaway, Julie Harris, Eva-Marie Saint, Jean Stapleton, and Eli Wallach.

As a teacher of modern dance, Ms. Sokolow has covered much ground, from The Juilliard School and the 92nd Street "Y" in New York City to the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. She has taught in many colleges and universities across America, including Bennington, Ohio State, Radcliffe, Smith, and Sarah Lawrence.

Lorry May, founding director of the Sokolow Dance Foundation, holds a BFA from the Boston Conservatory of Music. She has danced world-wide as a soloist with Anna Sokolow for over three decades. She was privileged to have several roles created on her: the part of Frida Kahlo in Frida, the soldier's wife in Kurt Weill, the acrobat in Magritte, Magritte, and the lyrical duet, September Sonnet.

Ms. May is considered a leading authority on the Sokolow repertory, gaining experience as an assistant to Ms. Sokolow for many years, and then as co-artistic director of the performing company, Anna Sokolow's Players' Project. Ms. May has set work on the Berlin Ballet Company, Germany; Ballet Independiente, Mexico; Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Ohio; Dancefusion Company, PA; and Kansas City Ballet, Kansas. She has also set repertory on students at the University of Wisconsin, MI; New World School of the Arts, FL; Jacksonville University, FL; and the Boston Conservatory of Music, MA; to name a few.

Ms. May's interest in presenting Sokolow's legacy as an educational tool is evident in her development of the Sokolow Legacy Workshops which include technique classes, lectures on Sokolow's life, and Sokolow repertory. Successful workshops were given at Keimyung University, Korea; National Institute of the Arts, Taiwan; University 8, Paris, Limon Institute and Barnard College at Columbia University, both in New York City, and the New York State Summer School of the Arts, Saratoga, NY. Ms. May created and filmed the Sokolow Rooms Etude as part of the American Dance Legacy Institute's initiative The Dance Legacy Volumes, with curator Carolyn Adams. Workshops with the University of North Carolina led to a collaboration with the South Carolina Dance Association to introduce the Sokolow Rooms Etude into the curriculum standards for the public schools in both these states.