Larry A. Attaway
Larry A. Attaway, Chair, Department of Dance;
Executive Director, Butler Ballet.
Mr. Attaway was appointed Chair of the Butler Department of
Dance in June of 2010. He first came to Butler University in
September 1997 when he was first appointed Director of the Jordan
Academy of Dance. The move to Indianapolis followed a 25-year
association with the California Institute of the Arts in Los
Angeles. He served CalArts in many capacities: faculty member,
Associate Dean of the School of Dance, President of the Academic
Senate, Faculty Trustee, and Chair of Interschool Projects
Committee. His professional arts-training began at Florida State
University under the tutelage of Mr. Albert Tipton (music) and Ms.
Nancy Smith-Fichter (dance) and in 1971 he completed his Bachelor
of Music degree at FSU. In 1972 he moved to California and
continued his dance/music training with Mel Powell, Lee Hambro,
Cara Bradbury Marcus, Donald McKayle and his life-long mentor,
Bella Lewitzky.
From 1972-1997 he was Composer-in-Residence and Associate
Director for Bella Lewitzky and the Lewitzky Dance Company, touring
extensively throughout the US, Europe, Asia and Africa. He and Ms.
Lewitzky collaborated on over 16 works in the company's repertoire.
Among those included commissions from the ARCO Foundation
(Agitime), the Krannart Center in Urbana, IL (Four Women in Time),
the Chateauvallon Festival in Toulon, France (Facets), the UCLA
Center for the Performing Arts (Impressions # 2, Van Gogh), and the
Los Angeles Arts Festival (Impressions #1, Henry Moore). His song
set,No Word, based on the poems of Stevie Smith, was premiered by
tenor, Steven Stolen in 1998.
In 1980 he choreographed the re-construction of the 1912 Russian
Avant-garde opera,Victory Over the Sun, for the LA County Museum,
the Smithsonian, the Berlin Festival, the Amsterdam Festival, and
the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival. As Artistic
Director of the Jordan Dance Ensemble, he recently collaborated
with Erik Stark and the Butler Chamber Singers on a new staging of
Menotti's,The Unicorn, The Gorgon, and the Manticore.
In 1990, he became a founding member of the International Guild
of Musicians in Dance an organization that is dedicated to the
advancement of those musicians that have devoted their art to the
world of dance. He has served the guild as Editor of its
professional Journal, as President and is currently Treasurer.
He is a member of ASCAP; the National Association of Schools of
Dance, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity (Epsilon Iota Chapter) and
is also on the National Advisory Board of Sigma Rho Delta (dance
honorary fraternity). He has served the Indiana Council on
the Arts as an Advisory Panelist., and recently was on the
Performing Arts Panel of the Montgomery County Arts and Cultural
District in Dayton, Ohio.