MEMPHIS (July 28, 2010) – – – Dorothy Gunther Pugh, founder and artistic director of Ballet Memphis, announced that acclaimed choreographer and frequent Ballet Memphis collaborator JULIA ADAM will be joining the company as Artistic Associate. 

“I’m thrilled that Julia will be joining us as Artistic Associate,” said Pugh.  “Her artistic voice and vision, as well has her rapport with the company, will help propel forward and articulate the current artistic vision for the company.”

Adam, based in San Francisco, will work closely with Pugh, as well as the company’s other artistic staff, to assist the company on perfecting its repertory, rehearsing new works, teaching company class, and sharing her knowledge and experience with the Junior Company and upper level Ballet Memphis School students. 

“It has been a tremendous pleasure to work with Julia over the years,” says Pugh, “and I am very pleased to deepen that relationship this season with her appointment as Artistic Associate. Her international reputation and experience as a dancer and choreographer are of enormous importance to us, but even more vital is that her relationship with our staff and dancers is based on all the important things we share: a commitment to the most excellent art we can provide,   establishing a working atmosphere of joy and curiosity that brings out the best in our professional dancers, and a conviction that the innovative course we have set nationally must be built upon with care and intelligence as we move forward to achieve even more for our company, our community, and our art form.  ”

Adam first worked with Ballet Memphis during the 2003-04 season on a restaging of her Crossings, originally created for The Joffrey Ballet.  Adam’s first commissioned pieces for Ballet Memphis were two literary adaptations, Awakening and Curtain of Green.  Both of these pieces were later performed by Ballet Memphis at the Joyce Theatre in New York.  She also created the work Seven Threads, based on the seven threads of the Jewish prayer shawl, during the 2007-08 season for the first AbunDANCE event.  She created Fingers for the 2009-10 season’s Connections: Body & Soul.  This season, she will restage both Awakening and Fingers for the company to perform at Playhouse on the Square (Memphis), and will contribute a new work to the season finale, Connections: Earth and Sky.

About Julia Adam. Adam began ballet training in her hometown of Ottawa, Ontario before moving on to the National Ballet School in Toronto.  She danced with the National Ballet of Canada for five years before joining San Francisco Ballet.  As a principal dancer, she performed a wide range of lead roles.  She retired from dancing in 2002 to focus full-time on choreography.  As a choreographer, she has created works for companies and festivals all over the world including San Francisco Ballet, Houston Ballet, Marin Ballet, Bay Area Dance Series, Alberta (Canada) Ballet, ABT Studio Company, Atlanta Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Lawrence Pech Dance Company, International Ballet Competition in South Korea, and the Danish Summer Festival in Copenhagen.

She received the Isadora Duncan Award in 1996 for her ballet 13 Lullabies.

About Ballet Memphis (www.balletmemphis.org) In its 24th season, Ballet Memphis serves as a creative resource to the nation as a maker and interpreter of the South’s cultural legacy through its innovative neoclassical and contemporary repertoire, as well as production and training of the highest caliber. Founded by Dorothy Gunther Pugh in 1986, Ballet Memphis employs 17 professional dancers with a $3.3 million operating budget and has performed around the world.  The combined programs of Ballet Memphis–dance company, ballet school, educational enrichment and Pilates Centre–serve 75,000 people each year.