The world premiere of the new family musical JOSE LIMON: THE MAKING OF AN ARTIST--with Book & Lyrics by Barbara Zinn Krieger and Music by Charles Greenberg--will be presented by Making Books Sing, the New York-based company dedicated to turning books for young readers into musical works for the stage, with performances in the Bronx at the Lovinger Theatre at Lehman College; in Brooklyn at the Goldstein Theatre at Kingsborough Community College; in Manhattan at Symphony Space; in Staten Island, and in Queens. Brad Malow directs, with choreography by Eric Bradley.
     Based on an unfinished memoir by the famed dancer and choreographer Jose Limon, JOSE LIMON: THE MAKING OF AN ARTIST, chronicles the life of Limon, starting when he was 5 years old fleeing the Mexican Civil War with his family to the United States, where they moved from Arizona to California. Working his way through school with a limited knowledge of English, Limon moved to New York when he was 18 to study art, discouraged when he discovered he had nothing unique to say as an artist, he was about to return home when he chanced upon a dance recital by a German modern dancer, which instantly transfixed him. From that point on, he vowed to learn dance, and at age 20 he enrolled at the Doris Humphrey/Charles Weidman School. The rest, as they say, is dance history--he along with Martha Graham and Agnes De Mille created Modern dance as we know it today.