Lar Away

In 1986, modem-dance choreographer Lar Lubovitch took a risk that has since paid off handsomely. As a way of presenting his then new Concerto Six Twenty-two in New York, he decided to book his company into Carnegie Hall for a one-night-only performance in lieu of playing a longer season in a less tony venue. The combination of word of mouth and high praise in the dance press provided the twenty-year-old group with new momentum.

The lyrical full-company work, set to Mozart's Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra, K. 622, became Lubovitch's signature creation, and its central movement, a sustained adagio for two men (danced by Sylvain Lafortune and Rick Michalek), has become the cursive dance's virtual monogram. When the duet was performed by itself this past fall at "Dancing for Life," the high-powered AIDS benefit, the audience reacted to it overwhelmingly as both a picture and a prayer for its time.

Dancing for a renewed life of its own, the company will perform Concerto Six Twenty-two on opening night of its twentieth-anniversary season, this month at Manhattan's City Center.