Biography
If you Google “Genevieve Labean” the first thing you might learn is that she was a dancer with the New York City Ballet. What you will discover is that music is what inspired Genevieve to dance, and dancing is now part of what inspires her music.
Born in New York City, Genevieve and her mother traveled around Europe living for extended periods of time in Paris and Florence. Genevieve’s mother, Joanna Labean, was an accomplished pianist herself, and the music that filled the apartment remains a big inspiration in Genevieve’s music. Genevieve and Joanna finally settled in NYC and by age twelve, Genevieve was on the stage, singing and dancing in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, and also doing jingles, voice-overs, and commercials. As Genevieve entered her teens her main focus was studying ballet at the prestigious School of American Ballet.
Genevieve was amongst a handful of young dancers chosen to dance with the New York City Ballet. During her time with the company, she performed a lead role in NYCB’s version of West Side Story. Reacquainted with her passion for singing, she began re-visiting poems, songs and melodies she had been composing on the piano throughout her entire life. Deciding to leave the company and shift her focus to singing and songwriting, she put together a demo, from which New Line Cinemas used two of her tracks on episodes of a new TV show, “High School Confidential”, and Genevieve did a week-long run of performances with the Duke Ellington Orchestra at the famed Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City as the orchestra’s featured guest singer.
Most recently, Genevieve has assembled a band and can be seen performing her songs at various venues around New York City, such as Rockwood Music Hall, (Le) Poisson Rouge, Cafe Vivaldi, The Red Lion, and The Bitter End, drawing people in with her haunting melodies, profound lyrics, and angelic voice. She is working on a series of albums, the first of which will be released in late Fall of 2009.
Not wanting to let go of her love for dance, Genevieve is finding ways to combine her passions, dancing and choreographing to her own music, creating music videos to be projected during her performances and collaborating with some of the best dancers, choreographers, and musicians in the world.
Having always been a passionate supporter of causes that she believes in and which resonate with her, Genevieve is committed to supporting the battle against lung cancer– the disease which took her mother’s life, and one for which the search for a cure has been neglected and under-funded due to it’s smoking stigma. She is determined to use what she has to contribute– her passions in music and dance– in the service of this worthy cause, donating her time and a portion of proceeds from her shows and CD sales to organizations such as United Against Lung Cancer, a foundation which supports cutting-edge lung cancer research.
