WHAT

Ballet for Martha: Making of Appalachian Spring tells the story of the collaboration among Isamu Noguchi, composer Aaron Copeland, and choreographer/dancer Martha Graham to create the iconic ballet Appalachian Spring. In this special program—intended for adults—co-author (with Jan Greenberg) Sandra Jordan, illustrator Brian Floca, and editor Neal Porter will introduce the book and discuss their own collaborative effort to make Noguchi's, Graham's, and Copland's art accessible to a young audience. A slide show of sketches will accompany the discussion.

The program will be preceded by a book signing, from 1 to 2 pm.

WHEN

Sunday, December 12, 2010
Book Signing: 1–2 pm
Program: 3 pm

WHERE

The Noguchi Museum
9-01 33^rd Road (between Vernon Boulevard and 10^th Street)
Long Island City, New York
718-204-7088

Sunday shuttle-bus service is available between Manhattan and the Museum. Information: 718-204-7088, or www.noguchi.org.

ADMISSION

Free with Museum admission.
$10 adults; $5 senior citizens and students with valid ID; free for children
under 12 and New York City public high-school students with valid ID.

PROGRAM PARTICIPANTS

Sandra Jordan has co-authored twelve books with Jan Greenberg, including Action Jackson; The American Eye: Eleven Artists of the Twentieth Century; Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Through the Gates and Beyond; and Runaway Girl: The Artist Louise Bourgeois. These and virtually all of their other titles have received prestigious honors. Ms. Jordan has been a children's editor at Thomas Y. Crowell Company; editor-in-chief of Children's Books at Farrar, Straus & Giroux; senior editor of adult books at New American Library; and co-founder of the U.S. branch of Orchard Books.

Brian Floca is the author and illustrator of Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11, a Robert F. Sibert Honor book, a New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year, and a Society of Illustrators silver medal winner. Moonshot was additionally selected as a best book of 2009 by Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, School Library Journal, The Horn Book Magazine, the Washington Post, and others. Mr. Floca also wrote and illustrated Lightship, also a Robert F. Sibert Honor book and Booklist's "Top of the List" picture book for 2007, and The Racecar Alphabet, an ALA Notable Book. In addition to Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring, Mr. Floca has illustrated books by Avi, Megan McDonald, and Patricia MacLachlan.

Neal Porter is the founder of Neal Porter Books, an imprint of Roaring Brook Press. He has worked with a diversity of authors and illustrators, including Ed Young, Laura Vaccaro Seeger, Ted Lewin, Rebecca and Ed Emberley, Amy Tan, Chitra Divakaruni, Nick Bruel, Wendell Minor, Ross MacDonald, and Doris Orgel. Many of the books he has edited have received such recognition as the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, Caldecott Honors, Theodore Geisel Honors, the Seibert Honor for Nonfiction, the Sugarman Award for Biography, and many ALA Notable Book Citations.

RELATED EXHIBITION

The Noguchi Museum marks its twenty-fifth anniversary with an important exhibition that explores the relationship between Isamu Noguchi (1904–88) and some forty figures from the worlds of art, architecture, design, and theater. On view through April 24, 2011, On Becoming an Artist: Isamu Noguchi and His Contemporaries, 1922–1960 integrates artworks and documentary and archival materials to examine Noguchi's relationships with figures such as artists Constantin Brancusi, Alexander Calder, Stuart Davis, Arshile Gorky, and Frida Kahlo; designer and inventor Buckminster Fuller; architects including Gordon Bunshaft, Louis Kahn, and Richard Neutra; and dancers and choreographers Martha Graham, Erick Hawkins, and Merce Cunningham, among many others both famous and less well-known. In so doing, it provides a singular portrait of the art world at critical points during the twentieth century.

THE NOGUCHI MUSEUM

Designed by Isamu Noguchi and occupying a renovated industrial building dating from the 1920s, The Noguchi Museum exhibits a comprehensive selection of the artist's works in all mediums, displayed in a series of indoor galleries and the sculpture garden. Together, this installation and the Museum's special exhibitions expand the context for Noguchi's work and illuminate his influential legacy of innovation. For more information: www.noguchi.org.

For press information, contact Stephanie Markovic at Jeanne Collins & Associates, LLC,
New York City, 646-486-7050, or info@jcollinsassociates.com.