Dance leaders speak out for NYS funding

Dance leaders speak out!

Dance/NYC

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Best of 50 Years, 50 Stories

The Bessies are coming back!

I started out this morning, wishing all my Facebook friends a day of revelations. And, indeed, the day revealed itself to be a big one for dance and performance in New York!

Suspended during the 2008-09 season,The Bessies (New York Dance and Performance Awards) are up and running again, thanks to the collaborative efforts of its longstanding producing team and its new administrators, DanceNYC and, as independent fundraiser/producer, the dance and performance artist Lucy Sexton.

In a brief press conference at the French Institute Alliance Francaise, Gus Solomons jr--who served on the Bessies' inaugural nominating committee (1983-84)--underscored why these awards have lasting significance to artists:

"It was the first time that there had been an annual gathering where we could reflect on and celebrate each other's work and draw attention to artistically challenging work some of the audience was unaware of. So often in New York you feel like your working in a cave, struggling to find ways to continue dancing and making work, struggling to get that work seen and written about, struggling to pay your dancers and your rent. Here at last was a way to say publicly that work was being seen and appreciated, and that there was a real community to which that work mattered."

"The Bessie Awards will return next fall, yes!" cheered Elizabeth Streb, pumping her fist in the air. "That's really the most important thing I'll say today. There are many questions still to be answered, but we didn't want it to go on another year--or even another month--with anyone wondering if the Bessies were going to disappear."

The strategy and some ideas in development for reviving the beloved awards include:

• Current producers (Danspace Project, The Joyce Theater and Dance Theater Workshop) working in partnership with DanceNYC as it transitions into its producing responsibilities

• DanceNYC dedicating part of its soon-to-be redesigned Web site to a homepage for the Bessies, scheduled to debut on March 15, as "a hub for the New York dance world, a place to share information on companies, shows and projects, as well as...detailed information on the Bessie Committee and ongoing developments related to the awards"

• Seeking ways to extend the usefulness of the awards to the community and the award winners--for instance, pursuing commissioning grants to attach to certain awards, creating opportunities to show winning work at events targeting presenters, streaming awarded work on the Web site, and rebroadcasting the awards ceremony.

Sexton asked for our "patience and support" as work continues on making the Bessies process transparent and meaningful to the community. "There's no 'They' in this. It's us. It's important for all of us to keep talking to each other."

Streb noted, "The city is changing. The way dancers survive here is changing, as it always has. The scene is more decentralized than it has ever been and actually more vital--and more viral. So, the Bessies need to explore ways to better serve the changing landscape."


The committee for the 2010 awards includes:


Nolini Barretto
Rashida Bumbray
Lili Chopra
Joan Finkelstein
Boo Froebel
Stephen Greco
Ishmael Houston-Jones
Virginia Johnson
Brad Learmonth
Stanford Makishi
Brian McCormick
Nicky Paraiso
Brian Rogers
Philip Sandstrom
Yoko Shioya
Sydney Skybetter
Ivan Sygoda
Charmaine Warren
Susan Yung

A new Bessie Awards Steering Committee is in formation, currently including Michelle Burkhart, Martin Wechsler, Judy Hussie-Taylor, Andrea Sholler, Carla Peterson, Jennifer Goodale and Reggie Wilson.

An announcement of details about the Fall 2010 awards ceremony will be made on May 1.

For further information, contact Lucy Sexton at thebessies@gmail.com

A complete list of former Bessies recipients can be found at this link (pdf). And for information on DanceNYC, click here.

Addressing race: Thank you, DanceNYC!

Last evening at the Ailey studios, DanceNYC--under the courageous and energetic leadership of its director, Michelle Burkhart--hosted a valuable conversation on the issue of race in the dance field, focused on the scarcity of arts administrators of color. The organization's first town hall on race, held in 2007, was devoted to dance artists.

Researcher Ebonie Pittman presented the results of her study of sixteen dance organizations, including the unsurprising but still unacceptable conclusion that the preponderance of dance administrators and dance audiences are Caucasian. That means that the majority of the people doing marketing and development--and thus, tasked with reaching out to a diverse potential audience--do not reflect the diversity of that community. Pittman said that she concluded that, while she found no evidence of blatant discrimination, it was clear that the dance field has not been keeping up with communities that should be served.

Pittman's interesting presentation was followed by a lively discussion, moderated by Baraka Sele (Assistant VP for Programming and Curator/Producer at New Jersey Performing Arts Center) and including George Banks, author of The Issue of Race, Sharon Williams, Director of Development, Dance Theatre of Harlem, and Cassandra Oliveras, Director of Marketing, Ballet Hispanico.

Among other topics, the panelists and audience addressed barriers to inclusivity and solutions to the lack of awareness of opportunities in the field of arts administration. They cited the need for effective training of future administrators and the significance of mentorship from accessible veterans in the field.

To paraphrase one of Sele's remarks, talking about a problem or concern is indeed a form of action. Clearly, these conversations within the dance community are essential to our development and must continue. I commend DanceNYC for taking up this task, and I look forward to their future forums on race.

To connect with DanceNYC, click here.

Hey, Teach!

Teaching in the NYC Public Schools

Joan Finkelstein
Director of Dance Programs, New York City Department of Education

Wednesday, May 7 (6pm)
at the Dance/NYC Loft

RSVP here