Lorry May, founding director of the Sokolow Dance Foundation, holds a BFA from the Boston Conservatory of Music. She has danced world-wide as a soloist with Anna Sokolow for over three decades. She was privileged to have several roles created on her: the part of Frida Kahlo in Frida, the soldier's wife in Kurt Weill, the acrobat in Magritte, Magritte, and the lyrical duet, September Sonnet.
" The highlight of the evening was a solo danced by Lorry May. There was such an inward aliveness
and sensitive awareness that each breath became eloquent."
(Ideas of an Acrobat)
The Richmond Times, VA - Frances Wessells (1972)
"I especially appreciated Ms. May's facial expressions, which alone were worth the price of
admission, and the crispness and aplomb of her dance technique, which were no less impressive."
(Evolution of Ragtime)
Bridgeport Post, CT - Richard Day (1982)
"This, I humbly predict, is the sort of material from early-modern choreography that will last,
as long as there are dancers who can perform it persuasively, and Lorry May did."
(Lyric Suite)
Dance Magazine - Joan Ross Acocella, NYC (1985)
"An uncompromisingly expressionistic performer, Lorry May then returns and offers solo phrases of unadorned
vocabulary which reminds us that great dancing is less about what you do, and largely about how you do it."
(September Sonnet)
Back Stage, NYC - Lisa Jo Sagolla (2001)
Ms May is considered a leading authority on the Sokolow repertory, gaining experience as an assistant to Ms. Sokolow for many years, and then as co-artistic director of the performing company, Anna Sokolow's Players' Project. Ms. May has set work on the Berlin Ballet Company; Germany; Ballet Independiente, Mexico; Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Ohio; Dancefusion Company, PA; and Kansas City Ballet, Kansas.
"Rooms...has universal resonance...and Grossman's dancers (Danny Grossman Dance Company) were born to perform it. Kudos go to Lorry May, who is responsible for staging Sokolow, for her crystalline reconstruction."
Globe & Mail, Toronto, Canada - Paula Citron (2004)
She has also set repertory on students at the University of Wisconsin, MI; New World School of the Arts, FL; Jacksonville University, FL; and the Boston Conservatory of Music, MA; to name a few.
Ms. May's interest in presenting Sokolow's legacy as an educational tool is evident in her development of the Sokolow Legacy Workshops which include technique classes, lectures on Sokolow's life, and Sokolow repertory. Successful workshops were given at Keimyung University, Korea; National Institute of the Arts, Taiwan; University 8, Paris; Limon Institute and Barnard College at Columbia University, both in New York City; and the New York State Summer School of the Arts, Saratoga, NY.
Ms. May created and filmed the Sokolow Rooms Etude as part of the American Dance Legacy Institute's initiative The Dance Legacy Volumes, with curator Carolyn Adams. Workshops with the University of North Carolina let to a collaboration with the South Carolina Dance Association to introduce the Sokolow Rooms Etude into the curriculum standards for the public schools in both these states.
