Press Releases

Laurel Victoria Gray Gives 2009 Cohen Lecture 
at 32nd Annual Fulbright  Association Conference

Laurel Victoria Gray, Artistic Director of  the Silk
Dance Road Company, presented the 2009 Selma Jeanne Cohen Lecture in International Dance Scholarship on Saturday, Oct. 31, at the Madison Hotel in Washington, D.C. Dr. Gray is adjunct professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at George Washington University.

Dr. Gray discussed “A Living Legacy: Uzbek Dance” and touched on the 1989 Seattle Soviet Theatre Arts Exchange, in which Dr. Cohen participated. Her presentation included a 
performance by members of the Silk Road Dance Company of traditional Uzbek  dances from the company’s Legacy Repertoire.

Ms. Gray first visited Uzbekistan in 1973 and, in 1981, joined the Seattle-Tashkent Sister City Committee. She participated in the official 1984 delegation of Seattle residents  to Uzbekistan and founded the Uzbek Dance and Culture Society that same year.  Gray also co-founded of an annual dance camp that hosts dance instructors from  Uzbekistan. In 2007, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Uzbek Ministry  of Culture at a ceremony held at Tashkent's Institute of Art in recognition of  her work in promoting and preserving traditional Uzbek culture and dance. She  has produced performances at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts and the  Embassy of Uzbekistan in Washington, D.C. She received the Kennedy Center’s  Local Dance Commissioning Project Award for her production of “Egypta: Myth,  Magic, and Mystery” in 2003.

“I hope that my study of women's dance of  Silk Road regions has helped to cultivate better understanding of, and respect  for, traditional cultures of the East,” Gray said.

The late Selma Jeanne  Cohen, preeminent dance historian and founding editor of the
International  Encyclopedia of Dance, endowed the dance lecture at the Fulbright
Association’s  annual conference to highlight dance scholarship in a multidisciplinary,  international forum. Previous lecturers are Leslie Friedman, the Lively  Foundation, San Francisco (2000); Robin Marshall Grove, University of Melbourne,  Australia (2001); Gretchen Ward Warren, University of South Florida (2002);  Wayne B. Kraft, Eastern Washington University and the Erdély (Dance) Ensemble  (2003); London-based Millicent Hodson, dance historian and choreographer (2004);  Richard Semmens, University of Western Ontario, Canada (2005); Barbara Browning,  New York University (2006), Ron Jenkins, Wesleyan University (2007); and Alison  M. Friedman, general manager, Parnassus
Productions, Inc., Beijing  (2008).

“I view this honor as a tribute to Selma Jeanne Cohen and her  great enthusiasm for Uzbek dance. Twenty years after she participated in our  historic delegation to Soviet Uzbekistan, we can better appreciate the  significance of the seeds sewn by our cultural exchange with
Central Asia,” said  Ms. Gray.

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PRESS RELEASE:
DC Choreographer Receives Iranian Arts Award

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 16, 2011

TORONTO, Ontario. Laurel Victoria Gray, Artistic Director of Washington DC’s Silk Road Dance Company, received the prestigious Arash Award at the closing gala of Toronto’s Tirgan Festival, the world’s largest Iranian cultural celebration, held July 21-24, 2011. The honor is bestowed on leading artists and literary figures in Iranian culture. Gray is the first American of non-Iranian descent to receive this award.

Known for her innovative choreographies based on the movement vocabulary of traditional Persian and Central Asian dance forms, Laurel Victoria Gray actively promotes understanding of the Islamic world through her cultural presentations, performances, and lectures. She founded the Silk Road Dance Company in 1995; the ensemble has since performed throughout the US as well as in Qatar and Uzbekistan. At the invitation of the Tirgan Organizing Committee, Silk Road Dance Company presented several programs at this year’s festival. Tirgan 2011 showcased the talents of over 150 Iranian artists, many of whom traveled thousands of miles to attend the festival. Exemplary performances in music, dance and theatre were presented, and world class masterpieces in cinema and the visual arts were made available to the public.

The Arash Award is named for the legendary Persian archer who, during a dispute between Persian and non-Persian peoples, put his soul into a magical arrow destined to peaceably mark the boundaries between two kingdoms. The stunning statuette was designed by Iranian sculptor Ahmad Sakhavarz. Made from 24 carat gold-plated pewter, the Arash Award was manufactured by the same company that created the Oscars.

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PRESS RELEASE:
Laurel Victoria Gray's Folkloric Ballet
HAFT PAYKAR: SEVEN BEAUTIES to premiere in Washington DC

February  26, 2011 @ 2pm
ATLAS PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
Washington  DC

On February 26, the 2011 INTERSECTIONS
Festival at the Atlas  Performing Arts Center will feature a Middle Eastern folkloric ballet, Haft Paykar: Seven Beauties, by award winning choreographer Dr. Laurel Victoria Gray and her Silk Road Dance Company. Through traditional
dance, breathtaking  costumes, and memorable choreography, this production takes the audience to  seven different cultures through a magical
story.

Written in 1197 by the  poet Nizami whose home was the town of Ganja in present-day Azerbaijan, Haft  Paykar: Seven Beauties it is an epic romance. In the tale, the young warrior  Bahram Gur enters a mysterious, locked room to discover the portraits of seven  beautiful princesses, each from a different land. After he wins a kingdom and  achieves great wealth and power, he remembers the maidens and sets out on a  quest to bring each to his kingdom. From these wise women the hero learns  patience, truth, faith, passion,
serenity, fairness and devotion to God. Since  Bahram Gur is destined to become Ruler of the World, he must learn these lessons  in order to govern wisely. His spiritual journey is a reminder that only through  self-knowledge and self-mastery can humans find perfection.

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