Sara Rudner’s Radiant Life in Dance

Wendy Perron and Jodi Melnick speak with Sara Rudner about her career and the ways in which she challenged the conventions of concert dance. Recognized as one of the great dance artists of contemporary dance, Sara Rudner became a founding member of Twyla Tharp’s dance company in 1965. She collaborated and performed with Tharp for 20 years, then directed the Sara Rudner Performance Ensemble. In this evening event, Wendy Perron and Jodi Melnick—two dance artists who worked with Rudner in different decades—speak with Sara Rudner about her career and the ways in which she challenged the conventions of concert dance. They present video excerpts of Rudner from the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, as she appears in Tharp’s Eight Jelly Rolls, Bix Pieces , and The Catherine Wheel , as well as in her own works like Dancing Parttime, and the 1999 version of the Dancing-on-View . Jodi Melnick says, “Being with Sara in this dance world is to engage in pure brilliance. The body, the brain, the heart, all shining and pumping at the same time.” Mikhail Baryshnikov called Rudner’s dancing “hypnotic” and asked to perform her iconic solo Heart Beat. Her ecstatic improvising is immortalized in Carolyn Brown and Jim Klosty’s 1975 film Dune Dance . She has choreographed for theatre and opera productions at venues such as the Salzburg Festival and the Paris Opera. As director of dance at Sarah Lawrence College from 1999 to 2019, she has been a beacon of light and a mentor to young dancers. Photo Credit: Sara Rudner in Some 'Yes' and More . Photo by Nathaniel Tileston. Jerome Robbins Dance Division. SEATING POLICY | Programs are free and open to all, but registration is requested. Check-in line forms 45 minutes before the advertised start time. Registered guests are given priority check-in 15 to 30 minutes before start time. Five minutes before the advertised start time, all seats are released, regardless of registration, to our patrons in the stand-by line. If you arrive after the program starts, you will be seated at the discretion of our front-of-house staff. STANDBY LINE | If registration is sold out or has ended, do not fret! We welcome you to come to the Library regardless of registration status and wait in our standby line, which forms 45 minutes before the advertised start time. Five minutes before the program starts, all remaining seats are released. While this is not guaranteed, we will do our best to get you into any of our programs. ASSISTIVE LISTENING AND ASL | ASL interpretation and real-time (CART) captioning available upon request. Please submit your request at least two weeks in advance by emailing accessibility@nypl.org. BRUNO WALTER POLICY | Please note that any unoccupied seat will be released five minutes before the show begins and holding seats for anyone beyond that is prohibited. There is no food or drink allowed inside the venue. AUDIO/VIDEO RECORDING | Programs may be photographed and recorded by and at the discretion of the Library for the Performing Arts and will post signs indicating as such. If you would prefer your image not be captured, please let us know and we can seat you accordingly. Attending any program indicates your consent to being filmed/photographed and your consent to the use of your recorded image for any and all purposes of the New York Public Library. PRESS | Please send all press inquiries to Alex Teplitzky at alexteplitzky@nypl.org. Please note that all recording, including professional video recordings, are prohibited without expressed consent from the Library.