The LJD STUDENT COMPANY
Winter/Spring 2025
Directed by Lydia Johnson
Our exciting Student Company is open to dancers who are 13 years old through high school, with a strong desire to choreograph and perform their own pieces. High School dancers may both enroll in the Company and serve as Interns, mentoring younger dancers while increasing their own creative skill set.
NEW: There are now two "levels" within the Company. Our 13 yr old and less experienced dancers (Junior Company) are learning how to rehearse effectively and how to use various structures to create better pieces. The high school level and more experienced dancers( Senior Company) works on both expanding the technical level used in their choreography as well as creating emotionally evocative, well built dances.
An alternative to competition dance school companies, our dancers work in small groups to develop and polish well crafted dances. This in-depth experience allows students to think creatively using their own unique voices. Thought will be given to the music, design elements and emotional nuance in each dance. The LJD Student Company performs their own works at The Ailey Studios in New York City at the end of the semester.
Workshops in various dance techniques will be offered throughout the year to the Student Company. For example past workshops have included introductions to Graham and Duncan techniques.
The Company offers an unparalleled opportunity to work directly with acclaimed choreographer Lydia Johnson who has received acclaim from prestigious New York dance writers over many years.
“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. The program at New York Live Arts includes four works, two of them new, set to a variety of musical styles, from Handel to Golijov”
The New Yorker
"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"
The New York Times
"Her quiet but penetrating choreography uses the music in unexpected ways...The final movement was stunning, as the women, formerly in white tunics, changed into black leotards and formed silhouetted lines as the movements rippled backwards and forwards through the group, a haunting and memorable picture of a community."
Dance View Times
"Lydia is a true master teacher in that she does not only weave brilliant instructional insight into everything she does, but she makes all the people around her better and smarter. The dance teachers she hires and trains become stronger through her mentorship, as do the teenage assistants, who each take on the responsibility of guiding a group of young dancers. Such a great reminder that philosophy, tone, culture and quality are led from the top, and that the impact of a master-teacher-as-leader is boundless."
Mitch Center of Center Educational Counseling
FALL 2024
Student Company members are required to be at a technical level to take Contemporary Level 3 on Thursdays and the Student Company class following it. In addition, either Ballet for Everyone on Wednesdays or Ballet 3 on Mondays is required for Company members.
Prospective Student Company Dancers must be at least 13 years old and pre-approved by Lydia Johnson. As is the case with any dance company a dancer's skill level, emotional maturity as applied to the study of dance, ability to work in cooperative groups and dedication to skill bulding is taken into account.
Please email Ms. Johnson at LJdanceschool@gmail.com to see if the Company is a good match for your young dancer.
