The Lively Foundation
Dancer-choreographer Leslie Friedman has been praised by critics and audiences on four continents. Honors include the Dean Goodman Choice Award for Best Solo Performance and the Selma Jeanne Cohen Award for International Dance Scholarship--the first ever given.
Leslie’s career includes a long list of “firsts:” first American dancer to perform, choreograph and teach in China with sponsorship of the US State Dept. and the Chinese national ballet academies; first American artist to perform in public in Moscow and Leningrad with joint US/USSR sponsorship after a 14-year suspension of cultural exchanges; first American to perform and teach with official US and host government sponsorships in Spain, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Egypt, Sri Lanka and others.
She performed extensively throughout India while there as a Fulbright Lecturer. In 1997, she was the only American to perform in the International Baltic Ballet Festival, along with the Royal Swedish, Royal Danish, Bolshoi, and Maryinsky (Kirov) Ballets.
She was awarded the Fulbright Senior Lectureship to create a new theater/dance work for the National Academy of Theater & Film, Sofia, Bulgaria.
In an earlier life, Leslie earned a Ph.D., in British History, at Stanford and taught there and at Vassar, her alma mater, and Case Western Reserve University before leaving academia to return to dance.
“Confirmed the proposition that dance is a universal language, and revealed that she speaks it as a poet with a distinctly American accent.”
US Embassy, Warsaw
“How lucky are those who get to see her dance even once!” Russkya Gazeta
“Crystalline humour, incredible energy”
Toronto Globe & Mail
About Leslie Friedman, Artistic Director
