The Bessies at BAM: Yes, we've got winners!

Bessie Awards executive director Lucy Sexton (left)
with choreographers luciana achugar, Jack Ferver and Mariangela Lopez
(photo: AK47 Division)

The NY Dance and Performance Awards, The Bessies, New York City’s premier dance awards honoring outstanding creative work in the field, announced the complete list of the 2015–16 season award recipients tonight at the 32nd Annual Bessie Awards ceremony at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, hosted by acclaimed choreographer, writer, and comedian Adrienne Truscott.

Awards were presented in the categories of Outstanding Production, Outstanding Performer, Outstanding Music Composition/Sound Design, and Outstanding Visual Design, with additional awards presented for Lifetime Achievement and Outstanding Service to the Field of Dance.

The evening included performances by Joya Powell, recipient of the 2016 Outstanding Emerging Choreographer Award, an excerpt from Donald McKayle’s Rainbow ’Round My Shoulder (2016 Bessie for Outstanding Revival), performed by Dayton Contemporary Dance Company and produced by Paul Taylor American Modern Dance, and a tap tribute to 2016 Lifetime Achievement in Dance recipient Brenda Bufalino.

Champions of tap Tony Waag and award-winner Brenda Bufalino,
co-founders (with the late Honi Coles)
of the American Tap Dance Foundation
(photo: AK47 Division)

Composer and director Meredith Monk presented Eiko Otake with a Special Citation for her A Body in Places platform, presented and produced by Danspace Project. Dancer Ayodele Casel presented Brenda Bufalino with the 2016 Bessie for Lifetime Achievement in Dance. Judy Hussie-Taylor, Executive Director & Chief Curator of Danspace Project, and Alastair Macaulay, chief dance critic of The New York Times, presented an award for Outstanding Service to the Field of Dance to The Jerome Robbins Dance Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Alex Smith, Executive Chairman of the Thelma Hill Performing Arts Center also received an award for Outstanding Service to the Field of Dance, presented by Philadanco founder Joan Myers Brown.

Other presenters included Tei Blow, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Judith Jamison, Amar Ramasar, Regg Roc, Carlota Santana and Alice Sheppard.

The 2016 Bessie Awards are produced in partnership with Dance/NYC and presented in partnership with the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

The 2016 NY Dance and Performance Awards

SPECIAL CITATION
Eiko Otake
2015 Danspace Project Platform: A Body in Places
For making herself “radically available” in public and private spaces over several weeks, actively engaging with pressing political and environmental issues of our time. For collaborating with a wide range of artists through performances, readings, films, discussions, and rituals to evoke the power and meaning of the human body inhabiting a planet in crisis.

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT IN DANCE
Brenda Bufalino
For her visionary work ensuring the future of the American art form of tap dance with the formation of the American Tap Dance Orchestra and Foundation. For introducing innovative concepts to tap choreography and for inspiring a new generation of tap artists to expand the art form.

OUTSTANDING SERVICE TO THE FIELD OF DANCE
Alex Smith
For his 21-year commitment to the presentation and preservation of dance by choreographers of color through the Thelma Hill Performing Arts Center. For offering emerging and established artists performance opportunities and for developing audiences from underserved and underrepresented
communities.

The Jerome Robbins Dance Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
For giving the ephemeral art of dance a rich afterlife through its unrivaled collection of video, writing, photos, choreographers’ notes, and more. Thanks to decades of work by dedicated staff and leadership, dance’s past is there to be remembered, recovered, discovered, and imagined.

OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION
Souleymane Badolo for Yimbégré at BAM Fisher
For investigating the artist’s experience of home and not home, of African and American identity, of ancient rhythms and modern jazz in a work that gloriously communicated the clash and reconciliation of the different traditions held within one’s life, one’s body.

Pat Graney for Girl Gods at Peak Performances at Montclair State University
For a visually stark and surreal depiction of the emotions, strength, and rage of generations of women and girls struggling under the constraints of society’s image of what it is to be female.

Maria Hassabi for PLASTIC at MoMA
For masterfully transforming the museum environment into an inclusive performance space in which the viewer’s gaze was directed from performer to spectator, putting all bodies on display.

Ralph Lemon for Scaffold Room at The Kitchen
For a complex meditation on the black female experience in our culture, exploring its expression, projection, and manipulation. For mining Southern family stories and pop culture icons to create a work that troubled, entertained, and challenged its audience.

OUTSTANDING PERFORMER
Ephrat Asherie
For her body of work
For a presence and a skill that is immediate and unmistakable, explosive and captivating. For her vibrant contributions to the works of Michelle Dorrance, Doug Elkins, Rennie Harris, Bill Irwin, Cori Olinghouse, Gus Solomons jr, and others.

Kazunori Kumagai
For Live at the Blue Note
For his powerful athletic technique combined with a riveting clarity. For extending the improvisational tradition of tap with a show danced in dialogue with musicians Alex Blake, Bill Ware, and Samuel Torres at the Blue Note.

Molly Lieber
For her body of work
For her introspective and tenacious performances, demonstrating her clear intention and visceral choices, and embodying the choreographic intention of a wide range of artistic processes in the work of luciana achugar, Maria Hassabi and Donna Uchizono.

Jamar Roberts
Sustained Achievement with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
For impeccably representing the traditional values of classic modern dance while forging new paths with his sublime artistry, technical precision, and passionate presence with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

OUTSTANDING MUSICAL COMPOSITION/SOUND DESIGN
Dan Trueman in collaboration with Sō Percussion and Mobius Percussion
For There Might Be Others by Rebecca Lazier at New York Live Arts
For building a sound system which enabled an infinitely varied aural world, using drums, percussion instruments, pieces of paper, mobile phones, wine bottles, and more. The percussionists and dancers equally inhabited an everchanging composition in Rebecca Lazier’s There Might Be Others.

OUTSTANDING VISUAL DESIGN
Holly Batt
For Pat Graney’s Girl Gods at Peak Performances at Montclair State University
For creating an immersive and interactive environment of boxes that metamorphosed in tone and purpose, from towering backdrop to dresser drawers to ritual containers for Pat Graney’s Girl Gods.

Three awards were presented in July at the Bessies press conference:

The 2016 Bessie for Outstanding Revival -- Rainbow ’Round My Shoulder by Donald McKayle, performed by Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, and produced by Paul Taylor American Modern Dance at the David H. Koch Theater
For giving a classic modern dance powerful new life, transforming the midcentury portrayal of an African-American prison chain gang into a searingly resonant cry for our current times, performed with humanity, craft, and beauty.

The 2016 Emerging Choreographer Award  -- Joya Powell
for her passionate choreographic engagement with issues of justice and race in our communities and our country, for connecting with the audience in ways that make it clear that these concerns belong to all of us—and action is required.

The 2016 Juried Bessie Award -- Pam Tanowitz
for using form and structure as a vehicle for challenging audiences to think, to feel, to experience movement; for pursuing her uniquely poetic and theatrical vision with astounding rigor and focus.

The 2016 Bessie Jury was comprised of Yoshiko Chuma, Liz Gerring and Bill T. Jones.

The list of 2015–16 nominees can be found at: www.bessies.org

The Bessie Committees:

The 2016 Bessie Awards Steering Committee, responsible for setting policy and providing oversight of the Bessie Awards throughout the year, is comprised of Cora Cahan, Beverly D’Anne, Lane Harwell, Jeanne Linnes, Stanford Makishi, Nicky Paraiso, Carla Peterson, Tamia B. Santana, Laurie Uprichard, and Martin Wechsler.

The 2015−16 Bessie Awards Selection Committee consists of Diana Byer, Kim Chan, Leah Cox, Nancy Dalva, Maura Donohue, Simon Dove, Angel Feliciano, Boo Froebel, Angela Fatou Gittens, Caleb Hammons, Zhenesse Heinemann, Jerron Herman, Iréne Hultman, Robert LaFosse, Melissa Levin, Matthew Lyons, Harold Norris, Craig Peterson, Mathew Pokoik, Rajika Puri, Susan Reiter, Walter Rutledge, Sue Samuels, Philip Sandstrom, Risa Shoup, Sally Sommer, Risa Steinberg, Carrie Stern, Kay Takeda, Catherine Tharin, David Thomson, Muna Tseng, Kay Turner, Tony Waag, Eleanor K. Wallace, Edisa Weeks, Ryan Wenzel, Adrienne Westwood, William Whitener, and Elizabeth Zimmer.

About the Bessies:

The NY Dance and Performance Awards have saluted outstanding and groundbreaking creative work in the dance field in New York City for 32 years. Known as “The Bessies” in honor of revered dance teacher Bessie Schönberg, the awards were established in 1984 by David R. White at Dance Theater Workshop. They recognize outstanding work in choreography, performance, music composition, and visual design. Nominees are chosen by a 40-member selection committee comprised of artists, presenters, producers, and writers. All those working in the dance field are invited to join the NY Dance and Performance League, as members participate in annual discussions on the direction of the awards and nominate members to serve on the selection committee. www.bessies.org

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Dance/NYC to present seventh annual Symposium

On Sunday, February 28, the advocacy organization Dance/NYC will convene its seventh annual symposium, featuring panels, workshops, legal and management consultations, film screenings and more. Hosted by Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, the event aims to confront issues of dance education, racial equity, technology, dance in public spaces, and the accessibility of dance to performers and audiences with disabilities.

Keynote speakers include Misty Copeland (American Ballet Theatre), Virginia Johnson (Dance Theatre of Harlem), Edwin Torres (Acting Commissioner of New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs), and Darren Walker (Ford Foundation).

Brother(hood) Dance! Collective (Orlando Zane Hunter, Jr and Ricarrdo Valentine) will offer a performance of Black Jones, "an exploration of manhood through the naked lens of two same-gender loving men" activating "their emotional and spiritual selves."

For complete schedule and registration information for Symposium 2016, click here.

For complete information and registration for the Disability. Dance. Artistry pre-symposium (Saturday, February 27), click here.

Volunteers are welcome. Click here.

Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center

280 Broadway (enter at 53A Chambers Street), Manhattan

(map/directions)

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Our bodies, our business: SLMDances at University Settlement

Candace Thompson of SLMDances
at University Settlement for BodyBusiness
photo ©2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

BodyBusiness--the exuberant, inspired new venture from Sydnie L. Mosley's SLMDances--asks "How can dancers be paid a living wage for meaningful work? How can we transform places of lack in our lives into places of abundance?"

While the first question will require something like revolution, the second gets answered and put into practice this very week by BodyBusiness itself, a dance concert hosted by The Performance Project at University Settlement where Mosley has been in residence. But not just a dance concert. BodyBusiness is a dance physically--and spiritually--nested inside a social, marketing and community networking event ("Marketplace").*  The simple fact that I might have something you need and vice versa is its operating principle and a model for how to survive, thrive and get your work done as an artist in New York or really anywhere.

Katherine Bergstrom of SLMDances
at play with audience members
at University Settlement for BodyBusiness
photo ©2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Opening night found US's Speyer Hall performance space encircled by reps from from several community service organizations--The Field, Pentacle, OurGoods, PURPOSE Productions, among others--the sound system pumping soul and R&B as an audience gathered. Eventually, dancers from Mosley's troupe appeared, casually engaging a few audience members in movement play in the central space as tabling continued on the sidelines. These interactions provided a transition into the formal performance. With tables cleared away, Damel Dieng's video introduced and, with the help of Mosley's entertaining dancers, cleverly illustrated the complex economic issues faced by freelance dance artists.

Unpaid or underpaid. Up to their eyeballs in debt. Working several jobs to support themselves while pursuing an art they love. Statistics stacked against any hope for healthy balance in life, let alone success in their chosen career.

In the following live performance, we learned more about Mosley and her dancers as individuals, their backstories, struggles and dreams. "My folks wanted me off the couch," said Kayla Hamilton. "My mother, she worked too damned hard for me to be just dancing around," said Kimberly Mhoon. "My mother likens my dance career to an abusive relationship," said Candace Thompson.

Most of the dancers are Black women, and Mosley's choreography for this initial segment shows a wry relationship with classical ballet (as skill, as playacting) that is full of charm and mischief.

There is joy and determination and something I can only call being-one's-selfness in every move, and I love how Mosley keeps things continuously on the move. There are bodies in a range of sizes, and so we bid fond adieu to that "mold" that one dancer, Rachel Russell, said she did not fit. Fuck that mold.

The audience participation that follows--which I will not divulge here--gets to the heart of Mosley's whole project. She has a need to see dancers stand in their power (probably more than just dancers, too...but let's start there), and she offers some tools and bids us all use them well and carry on.

*Tonight's Marketplace--open at 6pm and followed, roughly at 7 or 7:30 by the performance--will feature tabling by health and social services organizations, and tomorrow's will be devoted to small businesses.

For BodyBusiness information and tickets, click here. Note: No one will be turned away for lack of funds. Also, with advance notice, childcare is available--which is very cool.

University Settlement
184 Eldridge Street (near Rivington Street), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Celebrate New York's traditional African dance artists

N'Deye Gueye
(photo courtesy of the artist)

Town Hall

An Evening with Traditional African Dance Artists in NYC:

Conversation, Demonstration and Celebration

A presentation of Dance/NYC

Thursday, September 17

6-7:30pm

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Admission is free 

with required reservation. 

Click here.

Dance/NYC and the New York Public Library's Jerome Robbins Dance Division present an evening of conversation and dance demonstration with Master African dance artists who have greatly transformed the dance landscape in New York City. Interviewed during the African Dance Interview Project of 2014, these esteemed artists include Maguette Camara, Marie Basse-Wiles, Mouminatou Camara, Youssouf Koumbassa, and N'Deye Gueye. This initiative, conceived by Jan Schmidt with Carolyn Webb serving as Project Director, was developed to increase community knowledge, awareness, and appreciation of traditional African dance in NYC. Renowned scholar and lecturer of the African Diaspora, C. Daniel Dawson, will moderate the evening.

Bruno Walter Auditorium

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

40 Lincoln Center Plaza (between Columbus and Amsterdam), Manhattan

(map/directions)

Preview another festive year of Bessies

The Bessie Awards Steering Committee--honoring outstanding work in New York City's diverse dance field--extends a special invitation to a cocktail reception and presentation of the 2015 award for Emerging Choreographer and the Juried Bessie Award. In additional, all Bessie Award nominations for 2015 will be announced at this essential event.

Wednesday, July 15

Cocktail reception 5-6pm*

Announcements and awards 6-7pm

Studio C at

Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center

280 Broadway (enter at 53 Chambers Street), Manhattan

(map/directions)

*Purchase 

reception tickets.

Support 

The Bessies!

Outstanding Emerging Choreographer: On July 6, the nominees for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer will be announced online at this link.

Juried Bessie Award:  The 2015 Bessie Jury includes award-winning dance artists Susan Marshall, Reggie Wilson, and Shen Wei. The honored dance maker will tour his or her work to one or more regional theaters.

2015 Bessie Awards Steering Committee:

Cora Cahan, Beverly D’Anne, Lane Harwell, Judy Hussie-Taylor, Stanford Makishi, Carla Peterson, Laurie Uprichard and Martin Wechsler

Produced in partnership with 

Dance/NYC

Upper Manhattan's dance advocates speak out

Look who's speaking out for dance!
Above: Nia Love
Below: Charmaine Warren

47 notable leaders and local residents of Upper Manhattan--including choreographer Nia Love, Yuien Chin of Harlem One Stop, Mikki Shephard of the Apollo Theater, Darren Walker of the Ford Foundation--tell what they value about the art of dance in Dance/NYC’s NEW YORKERS FOR DANCE video campaign.

Here are a few samples from the series: 

Nia Love

Charmaine Warren

Mikki Shepard

All videos are now live on DanceNYC.org website and YouTube channel.

A few thoughts on the 2015 Dance/NYC Symposium

I attended just one complete session at the Dance/NYC Symposium held yesterday at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center. No surprise--given what is surely my explicit/implicit bias--it was the three-panel Power, Privilege, & Perception: Voices on Race and Dance session curated by Dance/USA Executive Director Amy Fitterer and former Dance/NYC Director Michelle Ramos-Burkhart.

Before attending those panels, I did manage to catch maybe the final ten minutes of Department of Cultural Affairs commissioner Tom Finkelpearl's presentation on Diversity & NYC Cultural Leadership, just enough to note that there's a serious disconnect between what neighborhoods, small, homegrown institutions and independent artists need and what city government can imagine and support. Under repeated questioning by Dr. Marta Moreno Vega (founder, Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute) and other audience members, Finkelpearl--former Queens Museum ED and president, well regarded in that post--sounded lightweight and defensive. I thought back to Bill de Blasio's lackluster performance at a 2013 mayoral candidates forum on the arts when, as a potential mayor, he clearly had one thing on his mind: the looming contract battles with city unions. De Blasio seemed reluctant to engage with the arts community, even under the constrained and very safe arts-are-wholesome-for-schoolkids premise that governed that forum. I also thought back to the recent New York Times item announcing that children and families of the South Bronx would soon benefit from "films, music, dance, opera and more from Lincoln Center’s resident organizations’ great and talented artists." As if the South Bronx has not long nurtured its own artists and initiatives worthy of much more exposure, funding and other resources that make creativity and survival possible.

As introduced by Fitterer, Power, Privilege, & Perception sounded far more promising. Panelists would examine how racist power and privilege within the arts ecology cannot be dealt with while ignoring systemic, societal racism. Moreover, panelists would be encouraged--as they were, repeatedly--to offer practical solutions.

In her opening section, My Lens, My Dance, Ramos-Burkhart argued that everyone harbors implicit bias which may be detected through a cognitive test. Earlier in the day, she had administered this test to two dance artists--a white woman and a Black man, both of whom joined Ramos-Burkhart at her presentation. The white dancer-choreographer confessed that the test had made her deeply uncomfortable; the Black artist recalled tensing up as he grappled with the test. We were left to imagine the test's content as Ramos-Burkhart reported that the white artist's test results were inconclusive while the Black artist's results showed a slight bias in favor of Black people. The white artist interpreted her results as a sign of ambivalence due to her wanting to not be, as she called it, "a bad white person." Ramos-Burkhart issued no judgement of the results, which was fine, but her silence around the Black artist's results troubled me.

This idea that everyone has bias might have merit (especially dear to a self-serving racist) but is merely part of the story. After all, why shouldn't this Black artist have, at the very least, some small bias in favor of Black people given what we have experienced under white supremacy? All things are not equal until they are. The white artist's possible bias (even as she struggled to not be a bad white person) would not be equivalent to the Black artist's bias.  I would expect the Black artist to embrace and struggle for his people. Racism, naturally, has created in people of color a spectrum of resistance from mild to militant. It has also shaped a people who, when truly healthy of mind and heart, love themselves fiercely and seek to uplift their own whenever possible.

BTW, I'd be delighted to see the typical New York dance critic or culture desk editor take Ramos-Burkhart's test. That could prove revealing--and useful--but that's a matter, perhaps, for another day.

Ramos-Burkhart also directed several people in a demonstration showing the limits of how we think about diversity and privilege, how we fail to take into account how possession of privilege shifts as the social context changes. Like, say, when a white actress, wielding her new Oscar, declares that it's time for gay people and people of color (all presumed to be men, I guess) to fight for women's rights as hard as women (white?) have surely fought for theirs.

Tammy Boormann, chair of Urban Bush Women's board, is a white ally to a venerable dance troupe founded by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, a Black choreographer and educator grounded in commitment to social justice. In Boorman's panel--National Voices--Fitterer and Ramos-Burkhart were joined by Denise Saunders Thompson (chair and ED of International Association of Blacks in Dance) and Carlton Turner (ED of Atlanta-based Alternate ROOTS). Boormann made repeated efforts to solicit solutions but, in this, the panel came up short. Instead, we learned how difficult it is to revise the Dance/USA mission statement in a meaningful, progressive way without alienating the organization's board.

I appreciated Turner's stark, contextual perspective: Why would we expect a society that does not value our lives to value our art? For Turner and Alternate ROOTS, the bottom line is transformation, and the choice is clear: You either contribute to societal transformation, or you do not. Not every artist is going to make explicitly political work or participate in overtly political actions, and yet, as artists make and share their work, they can consciously choose to strive to serve progress towards equity and justice.

Turner moderated the session's concluding panel, Making Change: Artist Voices, which included representatives from three major troupes--Dance Theater of Harlem (Virginia Johnson), Ballet Hispanico (Eduardo Vilaro) and American Ballet Theater (Richard Toda). In addition, Sydnie Mosley (Artistic Director, Sydnie L. Mosley Dances) and Alice Sheppard (independent dancer and choreographer) brought more of an urgent, activist, community-invested experience of resisting silence and invisibility. Mosley's work as a performer, choreographer and educator deals provocatively with issues of race and gender; Sheppard's work affirms the capacity and rich language of dancers with disabilities. Much more could have been learned, especially from these last two artists, had we had time to examine details of their ideas and projects. I would argue that Dance/NYC would do well to offer an expanded version of Turner's panel with indepth presentations by artists like Mosley and Sheppard on how to innovate around the challenges and opportunities of difference.

For the purpose of this afternoon's program, the Gibney theater proved to be fatally formal with the audience seated in rising rows opposite panelists lined up behind a long table. Off in the far distance, sheets of paper covered the theater's wall of mirrors, but few people accepted the many invitations to take markers and share their evolving thoughts and feelings. It seemed a little awkward to get up from your seat and cross in front of the panel to reach the paper. Maybe, for future events, each participant can be issued a sheet of paper or a few index cards or grab a few sticky notes to capture words or sketches while listening. We can then hand them in or tack them up when the event is finished--a better way to draw out spontaneous responses and feedback.

******

For information about Dance/NYC Symposium's full day of programming, click here.

Black women in ballet speak out: February 2 [UPDATED]

Dance Iquail, in partnership with Dance/NYC and HAA: Harlem Arts Alliance, will presents Black Swan: Solidarity Beyond Colored Pointe Shoes on Monday, February 2, 6:30pm at The Riverside Theater.

This free panel discussion of women of color in the ballet world "examines the importance of resilience as seen in the stresses on black artists, communities and institutions" and "how dance as an art form can help organizations and individuals adapt and recover from the stress of racial segregation, diminished resources, and social disenfranchisement."

Scheduled to speak:

Baraka Sele (moderator), Independent arts consultant, former VP of Programming at NJPAC

Zita Allen, dance historian

Delores Brown, former ballet dancer and teacher, member of NY Negro Ballet in 1957

Karen "KB" Brown, former Artistic Director Oakland Ballet

Andrea Long-Naidu,  former NYCB and DTH dancer

Iqail Shaheed, Artistic Director, Dance Iquail, choreographer of Black Swan, a new work set to the music of Nina Simone, exploring "the experience of the black ballerina as a window into issues of race, identity, and isolation"

Monday, February 2, 6:30pm (free admission)

Limited seating. RSVPs recommended: iquail@danceiquail.com

The Riverside Theater
The Riverside Church
91 Claremont Avenue, Manhattan
By Train - #1 to 116th and Columbia University
By Bus - M4, M104, M60 to 120th and Broadway
Enter on Claremont and 121st Street.

Report details drop in corporate giving for dance

The most telling thing about this article in Crain's New York Business might be that, since being published a few days ago, it has received no comments.

Support for dance companies takes a tumble
Corporate donations that help sustain dance companies in the city have dropped precipitously.
by Theresa Agovino, Crain's New York Business, December 10, 2014

Read Dance/NYC 's complete report,

State of NYC Dance and Corporate Giving,

here.

Have you seen the new Dance NYC site?

Well here it is! (CLICK)

State of NYC Dance 2013 report from Dance/NYC

The study you are about to read does more to reveal the activity, economics, and workforce of New York City dance makers than any prior Dance/NYC research. For the first time, it tracks dance trends in the New York State Cultural Data Project (CDP) over time, showing us where the art form has gone and may be headed. By integrating a sample of local dance makers sponsored by Fractured Atlas, it speaks in more inclusive terms about our evolving creative ecology.

Study findings underscore the value of nonprofit groups in the CDP study sample as contributors and ambassadors for our City, with thousands of performances locally and on tour, millions in paid attendance, and $251 million in aggregate expenditures. Findings also demonstrate the industry’s resourcefulness in attracting diverse revenue streams—public, private, and earned—and its efficiency in putting resources to use in making dance, with 83% of dance makers’ expenditures going to programs.

--from the report introduction by Lane Harwell, Executive Director, Dance/NYC

To read the full report or highlights, click the following links:

Download the Full Report PDF.

Download the Report Highlights PDF. 

Jody Arnhold: New Yorker for Dance

Jody Arnhold 

Founding Director, Dance Education Laboratory

92nd Street Y

Newly-independent Dance/NYC steps off with a video campaign

Kudos to Dance/NYC's Lane Harwell for getting this story into the New York Times's Media and Advertising section:

Bringing New York City Dance Into the Limelight
by Stuart Elliott, The New York Times, June 3, 2013

Healthcare for New York City's dance community

The William F. Ryan Community Health Network invites the dance community to register for services including primary and preventive care, routine dental, mental health, OB/GYN, and eye/vision services. Click here for its letter to the field.

Founded upon former congressman William F. Ryan's belief that "health care is a right, not a privilege," the William F. Ryan Community Health Network is a family of not-for-profit, federally qualified health centers, which delivers medical care to diverse and underserved communities. The William F. Ryan Community Health Network is: dedicated to its patients, culturally sensitive, community-oriented, and linguistically diverse. Its goal is to ensure that everyone receives the most comprehensive care possible. www.ryancenter.org

Contact:

Maria A. Lugo
Director of Operations
William F. Ryan Community Health Center
110 West 97 Street
N.Y. N.Y. 10025
212-316-8361 (Office)
212-932-8323 (Fax)
maria.lugo@ryancenter.org

The need for healthcare options in dance is demonstrated by recent Dance/NYC research. For instance, the Dance/NYC Junior Committee's Dance Workforce Census: Earnings Among Individuals, 21-35, shows that only 55% of full-time danceworkers, and 3.6% of part-time dance workers receive health insurance benefits.

The Ryan Community Health Network's new initiative is one response to this identified need and grows out of field discussions initiated by Charles Reinhart and including dance artists and managers, Dance/NYC, Dance/NYC Junior Committee's Healthcare Subcommittee, Career Transitions for Dancers, Elsie Management, The Field, Fractured Atlas, Harkness Center for Dance Injuries, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York Live Arts, and Pentacle. For more on dancer health and to learn about Dance/USA's Taskforce on Dancer Health, see Dance/USA's resources.

Post-Sandy: Mertz Gilmore Foundation creates emergency fund for dance

NYC Dance Response Fund

In response to Hurricane Sandy and to early field testimony collected by Dance/NYC and its colleagues in service and grantmaking, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation has established a NYC Dance Response Fund to be administered by Dance/NYC, a branch of Dance/USA, the national service organization for professional dance.

NYC Dance Response Fund grants, from $1,000 to $5,000,will be awarded to New York City-based nonprofit organizations and fiscally sponsored projects of The Field, Fractured Atlas, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York Live Arts, and Pentacle focused on the creation or performance of dance. Successful applicants will have incurred identifiable costs due to Hurricane Sandy not otherwise covered by insurance or other sources, including:

    Unpaid artist fees (e.g., performance, rehearsal, or teaching fees cancelled as a result of suspended activity);
    Travel expenses (e.g., unplanned airfare, lodging);
    Lost sales (e.g., returned event tickets, class fees, uncollected rental fees); and
    Property damage (e.g., costumes, sets, equipment,space) not covered by insurance.

Applications will be accepted and processed by Dance/NYC, in partnership with the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, on a first-come first-served basis until all funds are expended. Priority will be given to those who articulate a clear need for reimbursement to rebuild. These are discrete funds and will not impact other Mertz Gilmore Foundation giving priorities.

All applications should be submitted electronically to MGFDanceResponse@dancenyc.org and include: a one-page statement of need; documentation of identifiable costs; and proof of nonprofit or fiscal sponsorship status. Questions may be addressed to Leigh Ross at lross@dancenyc.org

Sandy: How did the dance community fare?

How are you doing? If you're in the dance community, check out the Twitter hashtag #sandydance and contribute your story.

Study of fiscally sponsored NYC dancemakers announced [AUDIO]

State of NYC Dance: Discovering Fiscally Sponsored NYC Dancemakers

presented by Dance/NYC

September 7, 2012

at the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center

We are in discovery mode, and this is a call to action."
--Lane Harwell, Executive Director, Dance/NYC

 Do you know it's Friday, and we're all here talking about research?"
--Anne Coates, VP, Arts and Cultural Development, Municipal Arts Society

As dance journalist Pia Catton noted in her recent article, "More Dance Companies Scrapping the Old Funding Model" (Wall Street Journal), independent artists without nonprofit status are increasingly turning to fiscal sponsors as a sustainable means of managing the legal and technical requirements for fundraising and accounting. The following audio provides data and follow-up discussion around Dance/NYC's study conducted in partnership with five New York City fiscal sponsors serving movement-based art:

Foundation for Independent Artists 
Fractured Atlas
New  York Foundation for the Arts 
New York Live Arts 
The Field

This community forum was presented at the 92nd Street Y's Buttenweiser Hall. The recording includes presentations and remarks by, among others, John-Mario Sevilla (92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center), Lane Harwell (Dance/NYC), Ian David Moss (Fractured Atlas), Anne Coates (Municipal Arts Society), Jennifer Wright Cook (The Field), Alexander Thompson (New York Live Arts), Eleanor Whitney (New York Foundation for the Arts), Mara Greenberg (Pentacle), Dianne Debicella (Fractured Atlas) and Victoria Smith (Dance/USA).

Click here to download audio file [1:32:43]

Dance/NYC's new online upgrades

An announcement from Dance/NYC

 Greetings to our Online NYC Dance Community:

New things are happening at DanceNYC.org. We are growing at a rapid pace (with 75% more registered users this year over last), and our commitment to simplicity, transparency, and serving every person in NYC dance continues. We thought you-as a registered user-might be interested in knowing about some of our most recent developments.

See Something Different
Over the next few weeks, we will issue an upgraded See Something Different, our weekly e-newsletter powered by PatronManager. If you have performances or announcements on the horizon, the time has never been better for posting a free listing or a low-cost ad.

Free Listings
Committed to open access, we are keeping all listings free. You can list performances and events, auditions, choreography, volunteer, and employment opportunities. We are not increasing ad prices, and continue to offer nonprofit rates and special discounts for Dance/USA members.

Ad Packages
To save time and make promoting your work easier, we have streamlined ad options to an e-newsletter feature and a package including multiple web site banners. You can now format (enlarge, shrink, or crop) your promotional images. A new premium registration at 5 annually gets you unlimited dance calendar highlights (pop-up window, image, and video).

DanceNYC.org
You may have noticed other web site upgrades, from updated program descriptions to improved navigation and cleaner design. We have made video content available for our recent events to help you engage online. Through partnerships with Fractured Atlas, Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, and the online barter network OurGoods, we are bringing you space and legal resources and encouraging new collaborations and combinations.

Join us in growing the online NYC dance community by forwarding, posting, and tweeting this news. Follow Dance/NYC on Facebook and Twitter at @DanceNYC.

With thanks for all you do for dance. Onward!

Lane, Lacey and the Team at Dance/NYC

PS. Some more good news: Dance/NYC received a new Bloomberg Philanthropies' Arts Advancement Initiative grant to keep building its online services. You can join Bloomberg Philanthropies and help us fulfill a matching requirement ($5,000) by investing now.

Read the Dance Workforce Census report

Read the Dance/NYC Junior Committee report that everyone's talking about!

Dance Workforce Census: Earnings Among Individuals, Ages 21-35

The value of this study is its presentation of the first concrete research relating to the untenable economic plight of young dancers, choreographers and administrators working within the dance field in New York City. While no answers are posed, the need to find answers is made evident. If the passion, discipline and creativity of these individuals is not to be wasted, it must be allowed to flourish in a way that confirms that dance is, indeed, a respected profession — a place where achievement is recognized by the ability to earn a living wage, with appropriate health insurance benefits and a modicum of financial stability.

         –Beverly D’Anne

To download a pdf of the highlights or the full report, click here.

Tough economic realities for dancers

Dancers on poverty line
by Miriam Kreinin Souccar, Crain's New York Business.com, February 27, 2012