The most celebrated contemporary dance company in America will present an evening of signature works in Corson Auditorium on Saturday, February 23, as part of Interlochen’s 2007-08 Performing Arts Series.

The program will feature the groundbreaking ballet Appalachian Spring, one of the first major works commissioned for an American dance company. Interlochen student and faculty musicians will perform Copeland’s Pulitzer Prize-winning score, under the direction of Martha Graham Dance Company conductor Aaron Sherber. The program will include an Interlochen Arts Academy Dance Ensemble performance of the 1948 Graham masterwork Diversion of Angels, part of a multi-week Martha Graham artist residency with the dancers.

The Martha Graham Dance Company is just one highlight of the fall-winter season, which kicked off with the contemporary a cappella group Chapter 6 and includes such perennial favorites as the Vienna Boys Choir and The Nutcracker ballet. In January, pianist Billy Childs brings his Grammy-winning Jazz Chamber Ensemble to Interlochen, followed by the incredible acrobats of the New Shanghai Circus - who defy gravity in a beautifully orchestrated presentation of Chinese circus arts dating back two thousand years.

Other events include Irving Berlin’s I Love a Piano, an enchanting new musical revue spanning seven decades of American history. April offers Interlochen alumnus Bob Mintzer with his quartet. And in May, the Arts Academy stages Thoroughly Modern Millie in Corson Auditorium.