Our History
1940
G. Garth Fagan was born May 3rd in Kingston, Jamaica.
1959
Performed at the inauguration of Cuban President Fidel Castro with the Jamaica National Dance Company.
1960s
Fagan was educated at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. He was director of Detroit's All-City Eastside Dance Company and principal soloist and choreographer for Detroit Contemporary Dance Company and Dance Theater of Detroit.
In New York City, Fagan studied with Martha Graham, Jose Limon, Mary Hinkson, and Alvin Ailey.
1970s
1970
Recruited by the State University of New York at Brockport, Garth Fagan moves to Rochester and joins its dance faculty.
Bottom of the Bucket BUT... Dance Theater gives its first public performance on November 15, 1970 in Buffalo, NY.
1974
The Company appears for the first time at Jocob's Pillow Dance Festival in June.
1973
The company tours in Jamaica.
1977
The Company is one of six selected to represent the U.S. at the World Festival of Black Arts, in Lagos, Nigeria. With over 17,000 participants from over 50 countries, it is the largest cultural event ever held on the African continent.
1980s
1986
Garth Fagan Dance receives the New York State Governor's Arts Award in March.
1986 - 1987
13-city tour to the Netherlands and tours of Turkey and France.
1984
GFD premieres, for the first time, its New York City Season at The Joyce Theater in March.
1983
Selected as one of the 11 modern dance companies to perform at "Dance Black America" festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in April.
1990s
1990 -1995
Garth Fagan Dance embarks on international tours to Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, and Israel.
1991
"Griot New York," Fagan's collaboration with composer Wynton Marsalis and sculptor Martin Puryear premieres at the 10th anniversary of the BAM Next Wave Festival in October.
1994
GFD opens the newly renovated American Center in Paris with four performances of "Griot New York" in June.
1996
Fagan named a Fulbright 50th Anniversary Distinguished Fellow.
1998
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Fagan receives the Tony Award for Best Choreography for The Lion King.
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"Two Pieces of One: Green" premieres.
1995
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Fagan announces he has been selected to choreograph Disney's "The Lion King" for Broadway.
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PBS "Great Performances" airs "Griot New York."
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Garth Fagan Dance receives the first of five grants totaling $655,000 from the Andrew H. Mellon Foundation.
1997
The Lion King opens at the New Amsterdam Theater in NYC. The Company appears for the first time at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
1990
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Garth Fagan Dance performs for the first time at Lincoln Cneter.
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Garth Fagan Dance School oficially opens in September.
2000s
2000
The Company appears for the 10th time at Jacob's Pillow.
2002 - 2003
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Garth Fagan Dance tours in Germany and France.
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Fagan's tribute to Romare Bearden, "DanceCollageForRomie," premiers.
2005
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GFD premieres its NYC Season at Jazz at Lincoln Center, reviving "Griot New York," including one live performance with Wynton Marsalis.
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GFD performs at The Kennedy Center America Dancing presents "Masters of African American Choreography".
2008
GFD performs "From Before" at NY City Center Fall for Dance Festival.
2001
Fagan receives the 2001 Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award honoring choreographers who have made a significant contribution to the field of American modern dance.
2004
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The Company performs at City Center's "Fall for Dance."
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Summer Movement Institute begins.
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Garth Fagan Dance appoints its first ever Executive Director, Ruby P. Lockhart.
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GFD performs at the Grand Opening Festival of Jazz at Lincoln Cneter's new home, Fredrick P. Rose Hall.
2007
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Bill Ferguson becomes Director and Resident Choreographer of the GFD Student Ensemble.
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Gleason Works provides $500,000 investment in the Company.
2009
"Mudan 175/39" was named by the New York Times as the third of the top six dance watching moments of 2009.
2010s
2011
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Fagan receives Marcus Garvey Lifetime Achievement Award from the Institute of Caribbean Studies, presented by Jamaican Ambassador Audrey P. Marks.
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Norwood Pennewell sets "Liminal Flux" on the Company.
2012
2013
GFD awarded $100,000 Max & Marian Farash Foundation grant for Stop the Violence program. One of only four local organizations to be selected for this prestigious grand, GFD is also included in the Ganondagon Creation Story, another winner.
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Dance Heritage Coalition adds Fagan to its list of "America's 100 Irreplaceable Dance Treasures" in recognition of his "significant impact on the art form, demonstrated artistic excellence, major contributions to the nation's cultural heritage and potential to impact future generations".
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"Lighthouse Lightning Rod", Fagan's second collaboration with Wynton Marsalis and his Septet, premieres at BAM Nextwave Festival.
660 Cities. 24 Countries. 6 Continents. We are Garth Fagan Dance!
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Garth Fagan Dance is an internationally acclaimed contemporary American dance company, a bustling school of dance with an enrollment of 400 students, and a community-based resource of broad and growing influence, whose home has remained in Rochester for almost five decades.
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The company’s start began in the ‘70s when the country was just beginning to emerge from a tumultuous decade of riots and widespread unrest. As part of his recent appointment to the faculty at the State University of New York in Brockport, Garth Fagan began teaching dance classes at the SUNY Educational Opportunity Center in downtown Rochester.
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Many of his students had no previous training. Most came from inner city, economically disadvantaged backgrounds. But Fagan was so inspired by their raw talent and tenacity that he decided to transform this highly unconventional group of dancers into a professional company, based not in one of the world’s cultural capitals but in upstate New York.
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From this early start, the organization has continued to evolve, shaped by the values that first prompted its formation, Garth Fagan Dance is still dedicated to the sentiments expressed in its founding mission…
Our Mission
To advance, nurture, and sustain
Garth Fagan’s pioneering vision of contemporary dance through…
Creation, performance, and preservation of his choreography
and the commissioning of works by company dancers.
Dance training that encourages young people, regardless of their
race, gender, or financial resources to develop their full potential.
Educational programs, performances, and activities
that enrich communities and engage audiences.
Garth Fagan Dance has been acclaimed as “unfailingly original” by The New York Times, which also named the Company’s piece Mudan 175/39 third of the top six dance watching moments of 2009. Tony award-winning choreographer Garth Fagan’s dancers communicate with unbridled energy the depth, precision, and grace of Fagan’s work. The Company’s “fearless” dancers are “able to sustain long adagio balances, to change direction in mid-air, to vary the dynamic of a turn, to stop on a dime,” wrote David Vaughan in Ballet Review. Fagan’s ever-evolving dance language draws on many sources: sense of weight in modern dance, torso-centered movement and energy of Afro-Caribbean, speed and precision of ballet, and the rule breaking experimentation of the post-moderns.
The Company has been cited for its excellence and originality with a New York Governor’s Arts Award and has claimed five winners of “Bessie” Awards (New York Performance Awards): Garth Fagan (1990), Steve Humphrey (1984), Norwood Pennewell (1988), Natalie Rogers (1992), and Sharon Skepple (1999).
Photo of Bessie Award Winners
Photograhy by: Steve Labuzetta