The Bessies to honor Japan Society's Yoko Shioya

Yoko Shioya, Artistic Director of Japan Society will receive
a Bessie: the 2019 Presenter Award for Outstanding Curation.

The Bessies organization (New York Dance and Performance Awards) has announced the recipient of its 2019 Presenter Award for Outstanding Curation--Yoko Shioya, Artistic Director of Japan Society. “Yoko has been an amazing force for good in the New York dance world, curating with a bold and discerning eye and bringing important work across cultures,” said Bessies Executive Director Lucy Sexton. “I am so pleased she is being honored with this award.” And I agree!

Celebrate with Shioya at the Bessies Presenters Gathering on Sunday, January 6 (5pm to 7pm) at La MaMa La Galleria. Free and open to all! RSVP here.

La MaMa La Galleria
47 Great Jones Street (between Bowery and Lafayette), Manhattan
(map/directions)

BIO

Yoko Shioya became artistic director of Japan Society in 2006, overseeing the organization’s performing arts and film departments. Since assuming the position of Director of Performing Arts in 2003, she has enlarged the scale and number of commissions for the creation of new works related to Japanese culture by non-Japanese artists, and increased the number of tours of Japan Society-produced works throughout North America. Shioya also launched new initiatives, including co-producing commissioned work by international artists with presenting organizations in Japan, presenting works from East Asian countries, and establishing artists’ residency projects in New York City. Known in Japan as a writer and researcher on the public and private arts support systems in the U.S. and Japan, Shioya has been invited to speak at numerous symposia and lectures and on TV programs presented by the Agency for Cultural Affairs of the Japanese government, Keidanren, the Academy of Cultural Economics, and the Japan Council of Performers’ Organizations, among others. She has been a regular contributor to arts columns on performing arts and exhibitions for the Asahi newspaper, and has served as a committee member and selection panelist for numerous programs, including the Bessie Awards, Rolex Mentor and Protegé International Program, and the Toyota Choreography Awards. Shioya holds BAs in musicology and dance history from Tokyo National University of the Arts.

About the Presenter Award for Outstanding Curating

Established in 2017, the Bessies Presenter Award for Outstanding Curating recognizes a presenter or curator of work performed in the New York City area. It is presented to an individual or curatorial team whose work has had a palpable impact on artists, audiences, or the dance and performance field in general. While the award can recognize sustained achievement in curating or presenting over time, it can equally recognize a particular project, festival, or season that occurred in the past year. Visiting or guest curators, as well as full-time curators and presenters, are eligible. The recipient is chosen jointly by the Bessies Selection and Bessies Steering Committees. The first Presenter Award (in 2017) went to Judy Hussie-Taylor, Executive Director and Chief Curator of Danspace Project, for her curation of A Body in Places, Danspace Project Platform 2016 by Eiko Otake. The second awardee (in 2018) was Joseph V. Melillo, Executive Producer of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, for his championing of dance on the stages of BAM.

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DISCLAIMER: In addition to my work on InfiniteBody, I serve as Senior Curatorial Director of Gibney. The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, strategies or opinions of Gibney.

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DANCENOISE makes some noise on West 19th

Connie Fleming performs in Lock 'em Up
(photo: Lola Flash)

Lock 'em Up

DANCENOISE
New York Live Arts
December 12-15

There's no business like show business, and the best in the biz know how to zing you with surprises here and there. So, the only thing I'll say about the opening of DANCENOISE's Lock 'em Up is some advice. Keep your coat on and your cellphone camera ready. Night's are cold, and there's so much to see and hear in our fair city.

Celebrating the 35th anniversary of DANCENOISE, the duo of Anne Iobst and Lucy Sexton are back to remind us that feminism not only co-exists with raunchy humor and pugnacious slapstick, yelling at the top of one's lungs and symbolic bloodletting/bloodwearing at the expense of patriarchy but might absolutely require those things. Making space for the rageful Id we'd rather not contemplate, they are all about sprawling across the breadth of New York Live Arts' theater, filling it with the irritating noise of crumpled wads of packing paper, the insistent, rhythmic churning of half-naked dancers and a Goth-friendly, less-than-merry spill of black balloons. What's up with the dancing swastikas? Well, those noxious symbols, regaining open popularity these days, absolutely belong in the universal and cautionary time capsule that Iobst and Sexton is designing for the future of our world. Lock 'em Up is both the audacity of Nope! and a blast of energy to make you get busy with the painful and painstaking work of snatching our country back from the fascist bastards. And it's fun. You must get there.

Choreographer/directors Iobst and Sexton have lots of (great) help with this. So, here come the credits:

Performers: Tyler Ashley, Laurie Berg, Heidi Dorow, Connie Fleming, Melanie Greene, Greta Hartenstein, Anne Iobst, Madison Krekel and Lucy Sexton

Lighting design: David Jensen with Tsubasa Kamei

Video: Charles Atlas

Additional dancers on video: Yoshiko Chuma, koosil-ja, Richard Move, Heather Robles, John Walker, Edisa Weeks, Ashley R.T. Yergens

Production Direction: Lori E. Seid

Production Management: David Jensen with Tsubasa Kamei

Lock 'em Up runs through Saturday with performances at 7:30pm. Tonight's show will be followed by a Stay Late conversation moderated by Cynthia Carr. Saturday's show will be followed by an after party with DJ Johnny Dynell of Jackie 60 in the lobby, free with ticket purchase. For information and tickets, click here.

New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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DISCLAIMER: In addition to my work on InfiniteBody, I serve as Senior Curatorial Director of Gibney. The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, strategies or opinions of Gibney.

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Speak out! Call to action from The Bessies' Lucy Sexton

Lucy Sexton, Executive Director
New York Dance and Performance Awards, The Bessies
photo ©2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Dear colleagues,

Lucy Sexton here, Executive Director of the NY Dance and Performance Awards, The Bessies. I am writing with the urgent plea that we join together as cultural leaders at this time and collaborate in making statements about our core beliefs, in light of the threat posed to those beliefs and practices by the incoming government administration.

I was moved by this article by the journalist Sarah Kendzior who has studied authoritarian governments and asks her readers to “Write down what you value; what standards you hold for yourself and for others.  Write a list of things you would never do. Because it is possible that in the next year, you will do them.” https://thecorrespondent.com/5696/were-heading-into-dark-times-this-is-how-to-be-your-own-light-in-the-age-of-trump/1611114266432-e23ea1a6

I think it is time for all major cultural organizations in our city to make a public statement stating their values. This can be lifted directly from your mission statement and the verbiage you use when submitting grants. Something clearly stating your organization’s commitment to diversity, to freedom of expression and freedom of religion, to LGBT and women’s rights, more as you see fit. In this way we can say to the world that we will continue to stand for these truly American ideals; and we can remember to hold ourselves to these standards when the going gets tough.

I refer you to these articles on self censorship of a Trump-criticizing art exhibit* and on the withdrawal of foundation grants to a university after an anti-Trump rally.** We all know that difficult decisions about what to present and how to maintain funding will loom in the years ahead. Let us commit ourselves now to doing all in our power to resist the pressure to censor Muslim voices, immigrant stories, radical feminist work, openly pro-LGBT narratives, and so much more. It will be tough. The great work begins.

My goal is simply to do a press release drawing attention to the statements once a critical number of organizations have either submitted a statement or posted one on their own sites. The words are yours. Please let me know if you would like to participate in any way. Perhaps you have already released such a statement to your community. Just let me know where to find it.

I will also need help in reaching out to smaller and larger cultural organizations that I am not in touch with. Please feel free to recommend other institutions or groups you think should be included. If there is someone else at your organization that I should be in touch with, let me know. Please call or email with thoughts and questions and suggestions.

Thank you for your participation and support,

Lucy Sexton

lucy@bessies.org

Open this letter

on the NYDPA/Bessies' website.

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SERIOUS MOONLIGHT podcast: The Bessies with Lucy Sexton

Lucy Sexton, Executive Director,
New York Dance and Performance Awards (The Bessies)
(photo: AK47 Dance Division)

Click here to listen to

Serious Moonlight, Episode 5: 

The Bessies with Lucy Sexton

Subscribe to Serious Moonlight

Lucy Sexton works in dance, theatre and film. She is currently the Executive Director of the NY Dance and Performance Awards, The Bessies. She began life as a dancer and with Anne Iobst she created, performed and toured with the seminal dance-performance group DANCENOISE; their work was featured in a retrospective at the Whitney Museum in July 2015. She also performs as The Factress, often in collaboration with Nurse Baby Asparagus, aka Mike Iveson.

With Kathleen Russo, she developed and directed the ObieAward winning Spalding Gray, Stories Left to Tell at The Minetta Lane Theater. She directed Tom Murrins’s Magical Ridiculous Journey of Alien Comic at Performance Space 122.

Sexton has produced two documentaries directed by Charles Atlas: The Legend of Leigh Bowery for the BBC and Arte, and TURNING with Antony and the Johnsons. She served as Consulting Associate Artistic Director of the new performing arts center at the World Trade Center developing its artistic vision and plan from 2013-2016.

The 2016 Bessies

Tuesday, October 18, 7:30pm

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House

Doors open at 6:30pm 

for red carpet and pre-show celebrations.

Get your tickets here!

Serious Moonlight--hosted by Eva Yaa Asantewaa and produced with Tei Blow--is a production of Gibney Dance Center's Digital Technology Initiative.

Get your free email subscription

to InfiniteBody.

Click here!

Now, about that Performing Arts Center at Ground Zero...?

Ground Zero Arts Center to Shrink Further
by Robin Pogrebin, The New York Times, July 23, 2015

The 2014 Bessie Awards...and Chirlane McCray! And Jessye Norman!

The 2014 Bessie Awards
returned to Harlem's Apollo Theater last evening
for a 30th Anniversary celebration.
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

I know there are some folks out there who don't quite get the Bessies or feel completely comfortable about any kind of awards thing. But that's not me.

I'm the one with the tear in my eye when I look at Arthur Mitchell.

And a smile on my face when I see Baba Chuck Davis. 

And nearly leaping out of my seat when I hear presenters read out names like Camille A. Brown and Nora Chipaumire and Aakash Odedra and Okwui Okpokwasili--all of whom won the Bessies I knew they'd win. 

It's for moments like these that I will always want to be at the Bessies. It just feels good.

Having said that, I've gotta add: Last night's award show was one of the feeling-goodest Bessie shows on record.

Chirlane McCray and Wendy Whelan
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

L-r: Faye Driscoll, Chirlane McCray and Omagbemi Omagbitse
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Let's start with Chirlane McCray. Thank you, First Lady of New York City, for gracing us with your presence and paying tribute to Frank Hatchett, who was your dance teacher in Springfield, MA, and who passed last winter. What a treat to learn how much you value your own experiences with dance.

I believe dancing is the most beautiful of all the arts. Not a translation or an abstraction of life, it is life itself.

--Chirlane McCray

Lisa Kron, thank you for being a really, really funny host visiting from "the land of theater." You only think you're not a dancer. (Talk to Baba Chuck. He'll fix you right up.) And I hope you and Crazy Legs have finally managed to work things out.

Crazy Legs and Joselle Yokogawa
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

L-r. Pau Atela, Aki Sasamoto, Sam Ekwurtzel,
Jessica Weinstein and John Bollingen
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

L-r, Mickey Mahar, Maggie Cloud and Gillian Walsh
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Jessye Norman, listening to you talk about Arthur Mitchell was almost as good as the time I was sitting in my aisle seat at the theater when someone came up and touched me on my knee to get my attention so they could get over to their seat, and I looked up, and it was...YOU.

BTW, I think someone's cellphone was ringing while Jessye Norman was speaking. Let's take a moment to pause and reflect.

This is the Bessies' 30th anniversary. I'm buying pearls for everybody.

Thanks for the fun!

Love,
Eva

2014 Bessie Award winners

Arthur Mitchell
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Lifetime Achievement in Dance: 

Arthur Mitchell

Dr. Chuck Davis (center) with (l-r) Dr. B. Angeloe Sr., Karen Thorto,
DeBorah Davis Gray and McDaniel Roberts
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Service to the Field of Dance: 

Dr. Chuck Davis

Juried Bessie Award: Gerard and Kelly, for the inspired use of a simple score of movement and text to create mesmerizing and moving duets in Timelining, and for bringing a fierce and rigorous intelligence to their work that never loses touch with the heart at its center.

Jen Rosenblit with Rebecca Serrell Cyr and Addys Gonzalez
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Outstanding Emerging Choreographer (previously announced): Jessica Lang for the formation of her own company and its inaugural season The Joyce

Also for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer (previously announced): Jen Rosenblit for a Natural dance at The Kitchen

John Jasperse
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Outstanding Production: John Jasperse’s Within between at New York Live Arts, for a feast of unpredictable kinetic imagination shaped by a sequence of dazzling light and soundscapes.

Also for Outstanding Production: Okwui Okpokwasili in collaboration with Peter Born for Bronx Gothic at Danspace Project, for creating a world within a world in which she embodied the fear, clarity and intelligence of a young girl; using text and movement to make public that which is intensely private.

Camille A. Brown
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Also for Outstanding Production: Camille A. Brown’s Mr. Tol E. RAncE produced by 651 Arts at Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts, for using the American vernacular dance forms of jazz, tap, and hip hop mixed with pop culture references and African-American stereotypes to question herself and her audience.

Also for Outstanding Production: Akram Khan’s Desh at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival, for bringing a swath of Bangladeshi culture to life with a shape-shifting performance danced within a magical set that conjured a world of flora and fauna from muslin, movement, and light.

Outstanding Revival: Nora Chipaumire’s Dark Swan performed by Urban Bush Women at The Joyce, for re-imagining a severe and beautiful solo into an expanded emotional force field performed by nine powerful women.

Outstanding Performance: Stuart Singer in John Jasperse’s Within between at New York Live Arts, for a forceful grace capable of both commanding space and rendering delicate physical details with astonishing dynamic clarity.

Also for Outstanding Performance: Rebecca Serrell Cyr in Donna Uchizono’s Fire Underground at New York Live Arts, for a mesmerizing performance demanding precision, control, and a remarkable range of intense emotions and providing the strong quiet center around which the narrative of the piece revolves.

Linda Celeste Sims and Glenn Sims
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Also for Outstanding Performance: Linda Celeste Sims, a major contributor for nearly two decades to the work of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, for being an expert interpreter of a vast range of styles who goes to the heart of chorographers’ visions and crafts countless tour-de-force performances.

Aakash Odedra
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Also for Outstanding Performance: Aakash Odedra in James Brown: Get on the Good Foot – a Celebration in Dance at the Apollo Theater, for a dynamically fluid translation of James Brown’s rhythms into kathak and bharata natyam expressions, turning traditional styles into original, contemporary, and captivating performance.

Outstanding Music Composition: Simphiwe Dana with Giuliano Modarelli, and Complete Quartet for Exit/Exist, choreographed by Gregory Maqoma and produced by 651 Arts at Kumble Theater for the Performing Art, for a tightly woven musical score, combining subtle guitar and traditional South African a capella choir singing, which movingly portrayed the struggle to maintain tradition in the face of colonialism.

Nicholas Young and Carson Murphy
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Also for Outstanding Music Composition: Nicholas Young at American Tap Dance Foundation’s Rhythm in Motion, for inventive percussion platforms integrating the tap dancer’s traditional hardwood floor with electronic sound technology to allow for a deeply layered, live composition.

Outstanding Visual Design: Peter Ksander, Olivera Gajic, Ryan Holsopple, Chris Kuhl, and Keith Skretch, for a theater set seamlessly doubled by video projections, echoing the role of memory with its odd tricks and resurrections in the profoundly unified and moving production of This Was the End by Mallory Catlett.

Lucy Sexton on what makes a family

I Married the Gay Father of My Child
an interview with performance artist and Bessie Awards producer Lucy Sexton
by Anna Sale, Death, Sex & Money, WNYC, June 4, 2014

La MaMa fest to honor Alien Comic Tom Murrin

Performance Festival at LaMaMa to Honor Tom Murrin
by Allan Kozinn, The New York Times, March 12, 2014

New Ground Zero arts center plans, hirings announced

London Director to Draft Arts Vision for Ground Zero
by Robin Pogrebin, The New York Times, February 12, 2014

And now...The 2013 Bessies!

Co-hosts Gus Solomons Jr.
and Martine van Hamel
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Awards presenter Renee Robinson
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Nominee Vicky Shick
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

From my vantage point as a now-outsider, the restored and refreshed Bessie Awards organization appears to be hitting its stride. This year, the New York Dance and Performance Awards (affectionately known as The Bessies) deserves its own award for exemplary professional flair. Also, its goal of increasing the range and diversity of its nominees and winners is starting to feel like the New Normal. The atmosphere at The Apollo Theater last evening was great fun--good people, marvelous talent, a sense of light and hope in difficult times. I love my city, and I love that dance is such a fierce and exhilarating part of it.

Nominee Aaron Mattocks
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Nominee Donna Uchizono
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Broadway's Donna McKechnie
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Lifetime Achievement Award winner Luigi,
the legendary master teacher of jazz dance,
greets his former student, McKechnie
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Award presenters Meredith Monk
and Rajika Puri
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Nominees Marty Beller and Ephrat Asherie
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

The 29th Annual 

New York Dance and Performance Awards

Bessie winner Darrell Jones
c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Previously announced awards

Outstanding Emerging Choreographer: Joanna Kotze

Juried Bessie Award: Darrell Jones

Outstanding Service to the Field of Dance: Nancy Reynolds

Lifetime Achievement Award: Louis “Luigi” Faccuito

Announced at the ceremony

Outstanding Production: Michael Keegan-Dolan’s Rian for Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre at Lincoln Center’s White Lights Festival, for a dance of life-affirming joy that featured an extraordinary group of dancers from Nigeria, Indonesia and Europe.

Joanna Haigood's site-specific Paseo celebrated
the pride, joy and traditions of South Bronx neighborhoods
(Outstanding Production of a work stretching the boundaries of a traditional form)
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Also for Outstanding Production: Joanna Haigood’s Paseo at Dancing in the Streets & Casita Maria Center for Arts, for taking the audience on a celebratory passage through Bronx cultural life set to the Latin beats that originated in these neighborhoods.

L to r: Tom Pearson, Jennine Willett and Zach Morris
of that popular and winning team, Third Rail Projects.
Their immersive theater production, Then She Fell,
has been a critical and audience favorite.
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Also for Outstanding Production: Zach Morris, Tom Pearson and Jennine Willett’s Then She Fell for Third Rail Projects at Arts@Rennaissance and Kingsland Ward at St. Johns, for using dance and fractured text to create a dreamscape as compelling and disorienting as Alice in Wonderland’s original journey.

Also for Outstanding Production: Liz Santoro’s Watch It at Museum of Arts and Design, for blurring art and life by placing the audience in a space from which they viewed New York street life, choreography by chance and choice.

Outstanding Revival: Bill T. Jones’ D-Man in the Waters for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company at the Joyce Theater for returning to a work of great joy born of a time of great loss and bringing its fierce fight for life to a new generation.

Outstanding Performance: Sebastien Ramirez and Honji Wang in their duet AP15 at the Breakin’ Convention at the Apollo Theater. This electric duet, rooted in hip hop, explored the space between the lover and the loved with delicacy, passion and agility.

Also for Outstanding Performance: Charles “Lil Buck” Riley and Ron “Prime Tyme” Myles at Poisson Rouge. This duo inhabited the space where street styles become stage artistry, catching rhythms with intricate footwork, slides, toe stands, rippling torsos and sudden freezes.

Also for Outstanding Performance: Jaro Vinarsky in Pavel Palissimo’s Bastard at La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival. A coiled bolt of energy capable of captivating stillness and explosive physicality, he made every moment harrowing, sharp and urgent.

ABT's outstanding principal dancer Herman Cornejo
pauses on the Bessies red carpet
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Also for Outstanding Performance: Herman Cornejo of American Ballet Theater. He combines an astonishing technical ability with an unaffected purity of movement in the works of choreographers Alexei Ratmansky, Mark Morris and Twyla Tharp.

Also for Oustanding Performance: Shantala Shivalingappa for her Shiva Ganga, for embodying the god Shiva and the spirit of the River Ganges in one riveting performance, a vibrant athletic battle of life force.

Outstanding Sound Design: Ant Hampton and Tim Etchells for The Quiet Volume at Performance Space 122 and PEN World Voices Festival. For their use of intimately whispered text in a work in libraries across the city and for a score which heightened the experience in a space at once public and private.

Outstanding Visual Design: Fleur Elise Noble for her 2 Dimensional Life of Her at Under the Radar Festival at the Public Theater. She used detailed projections onto simple paper cut-outs to create a complex, playful, visually compelling world.

ABOUT THE BESSIES

Produced in partnership with Dance/NYC, the NY Dance and Performance Awards have saluted outstanding and groundbreaking creative work by independent dance artists in NYC for 29 years. Known as “The Bessie” in honor of revered dance teacher Bessie Schoenberg, the awards were established in 1983 by David White at Dance Theater Workshop. They recognize exceptional work in choreography, performance, music composition and visual design. A 40-member Selection Committee comprised of artists, presenters, producers, and writers choose nominees. All those working in the dance field are invited to join the NY Dance and Performance League—members participate in annual discussions on the direction of the awards and nominate members to serve on the Selection Committee.

Bessie Award nominees, two recipients announced

Lucy Sexton, Director of The Bessies
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

In a press conference at the Gibney Dance Center, the New York Dance and Performance Awards (aka, The Bessies) announced two award recipients for 2013 and the slate of this year's nominees in various categories including outstanding performance, production and visual design. The awards ceremony returns to Harlem's famed Apollo Theater for the third year on Monday, October 7 (8pm).

Darrell Jones, winner
Juried Bessie Award
above and below
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Darrell Jones

Third annual recipient of the Juried Bessie Award, selected by Ishamel Houston-Jones, Eiko Otake and Jason Samuels Smith and presented by NY State DanceForce member Paz Tanjuaquio, Director of Topaz Arts. The award includes residencies and performance opportunities through organizations in the NY State DanceForce network.

Joanna Kotze, winner,
Outstanding Emerging Choreographer
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Joanna Kotze

2013 New York Dance and Performance Award for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer, presented by Beth Gill, the 2011 winner of this award. Kotze was nominated for her work It Happened It Had Happened It Is Happening It Will Happen (Danspace Project). Other nominees were Justin Peck for Year of the Rabbit (New York City Ballet), Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith for Tulip (Roulette) and Ephrat Asherie for A Single Ride (Dixon Place).

Lane Harwell, member,
Bessies Steering Committee
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Beverly D'Anne, member,
Bessies Steering Committee
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Paz Tanjuaquio, member,
Bessies Nominating Committee
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Fatima Kafele, member,
Bessies Nominating Committee
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Aaron Mattocks, nominee
Outstanding Performer
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

The 2013 New York Dance and Performance Award

winners and nominees

Outstanding Performer

Shantala Shivalingappa in Shiva Ganga
Choreographed by Shantala Shivalingappa
Fall for Dance, City Center

Herman Cornejo
American Ballet Theatre
Works by Mark Morris, Twyla Tharp and Alexei Ratmansky
City Center and the Metropolitan Opera House

Aaron Mattocks
Works by David Gordon, Stephen Petronio, Jodi Melnick, Christopher Williams, Faye Driscoll, John Kelly, Dean Moss, Doug Elkins and more

Annique Roberts
Evidence Dance Company
Works by Ronald K. Brown

Charles "Lil Buck" Riley and Ron "Prime Tyme" Myles
Le Poisson Rouge

Kayo Seyama in BELL
Choreographed by Yasuko Yokoshi
New York Live Arts

David Wampach and Tamar Shelef in SACRE
Choreographed by David Wampach
The Invisible Dog Art Center as part of Performance Space 122’s COIL Festival

Jennifer Monson in Live Dancing Archive
Choreographed by Jennifer Monson
The Kitchen

Melissa Toogood in Interface, Choreographed by Rashaun Mitchell at
Baryshnikov Arts Center and The Spectators, Choreographed by Pam Tanowitz
at New York Live Arts

Sebastien Ramirez and Honji Wang in AP15
Choreographed by Sebastien Ramirez and Honji Wang
The Apollo Theater, Breakin’ Convention

Hari Krishnan in The Frog Princess
Choreographed by Hari Krishnan
La MaMa, La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival

Jaro Viňarský in Bastard (The Painted Bird Trilogy Cycle part I)
Choreographed by Pavel Zuštiak
La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival

Outstanding Emerging Choreographer

Justin Peck for Year of the Rabbit
New York City Ballet

Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith for Tulip
Roulette

Ephrat Asherie for A Single Ride
Dixon Place

Joanna Kotze for It Happened It Had Happened It Is Happening It Will Happen
Danspace Project

Outstanding Musical Composition/Sound Design

Omar Sosa for Miriam
Choreographed by Nora Chipaumire
BAM’s Fishman Space

Marty Beller for A Single Ride
Choreographed by Ephrat Asherie

Ant Hampton and Tim Etchells for The Quiet Volume
Created by Ant Hampton and Tim Etchells
Performance Space 122 and PEN World Voices Festival

Liam O Maonlai for Rian,
Choreographed by Michael Keegan-Dolan of Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre
Lincoln Center, White Light Festival

Outstanding Visual Design

Suzanne Bocanegra, costume design for Ich, Kurbisgeist
by Big Dance Theater at The Chocolate Factory

Pontus Lidberg, set and media design for Within (Labyrinth Within)
by Morphoses at The Joyce

Fleur Elise Noble, visual design with media for Two Dimension Life of Her
by Fleur Elise Noble at Under the Radar Festival, The Public Theater

Akiko Iwasaki, costume design for BELL
by Yasuko Yokoshi at New York Live Arts

Outstanding Revived Work

Dionysus in 69
Rude Mechs from a work by The Performance Group
New York Live Arts

State of Heads
Choreographed by Donna Uchizono
New York Live Arts

Scott, Queen of Marys
Choreographed by Doug Elkins
Baryshnikov Arts Center

D-Man in the Waters
Choreographed by Bill T. Jones
The Joyce

Outstanding Production

(performed in a large capacity venue of more than 400 seats)

Rian, Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre
Choreographed by Michael Keegan-Dolan
Lincoln Center, White Light Festival

Shostakovich Trilogy, American Ballet Theatre
Choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky
Metropolitan Opera House

The Legend of Apsara Mera, Royal Ballet of Cambodia
BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House

Outstanding Production

(performed in a small capacity venue of less than 400 seats)

Then She Fell
Created and choreographed by Third Rail Projects
Kingsland Ward at St. Johns

Everything You See
Choreographed by Vicky Shick
Danspace Project

The Painted Bird Trilogy Cycle
Choreographed by Pavel Zuštiak and Palissimo
La MaMa, La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival

Outstanding Production

(of a work stretching the boundaries of a traditional form)

Paseo
Choreographed by Joanna Haigood
Dancing in the Streets

red, black, & GREEN: a blues
Choreographed by Marc Bamuthi Joseph
BAM’s Fishman Space

Mo(or)town/Redux
Choreographed by Doug Elkins
Baryshnikov Arts Center

Outstanding Production

(of a work at the forefront of contemporary dance 

and performance practices)

Watch It
Choreographed by Liz Santoro
Museum of Arts and Design

The People to Come
Choreographed by Yanira Castro
The Invisible Dog Art Center

Organ Player
Created by Narcissister
Abrons Arts Center

*****

Join the NY Dance and Performance League!

Support The Bessies by becoming a member of the NY Dance and Performance League with benefits:

--Nominate Selection Committee members.

--Receive invitations to discussions of all things Bessies and to the annual press conference

--Buy tickets to the awards show before they go on sale to the public.

Click here for information.

Who won Bessies?

2012 New York Dance and Performance Awards (Bessies)

presented at The Apollo Theater

and hosted by Elizabeth Streb

October 15, 2012

Outstanding Production ("in large capacity venues--over 400 seats")

Event by Merce Cunningham
Park Avenue Armory

Outstanding Performer ("in large capacity venues--over 400 seats")

Silas Riener in Split Sides by Merce Cunningham
Brooklyn Academy of Music

Outstanding Production ("stretching the boundaries of a culturally specific form")

La Edad de Oro by Israel Galván
The Joyce Theater

Outstanding Performer ("stretching the boundaries of a culturally specific form")

Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards "for sustained achievement in performance and her work with Jason Samuels Smith at The Joyce Theater"

Outstanding Production ("performed in a small capacity theater--under 400 seats")

Antigone Sr./Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at the Judson Church by Trajal Harrell
New York Live Arts

Outstanding Performer ("performed in a small capacity theater--under 400 seats")

Omagbitse Omagbemi "for sustained achievement in the woks of Keely Garfield, Ralph Lemon, David Gordon, Urban Bush Women, and many others"

Outstanding Production ("in the context of the expanding field of contemporary arts, dance, and performance practice")

The Thank-you Bar by Emily Johnson
New York Live Arts

Outstanding Performer ("in the context of the expanding field of contemporary arts, dance, and performance practice")

Nicolle Mannarino in Devotion Study #1 by Sarah Michelson
The Whitney Museum

Outstanding Revived Work

The Shining by Yvonne Meier, presented by New York Live Arts
The Invisible Dog Art Center

Outstanding Visual Design

Doris Dziersk, set design for Blessed by Meg Stuart
New York Live Arts

Outstanding Sound Design or Composition

Flamme Kapaya and band for more more more...future by Faustin Linkyekula, The French Institute's Crossing the Line Festival
The Kitchen

Outstanding Emerging Choreographer

Rashaun Mitchell for NOX
Danspace Project

2012 Juried Bessie Award recipient

Souleymane Badolo
Awarded by 2012 Jury: Lar Lubovitch, Yvonne Rainer and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar

2012 Bessie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Dance

Paul Taylor

2012 Bessie Award for Service to the Field of Dance

Alice Tierstein

***

Become a member of the New York Dance and Performance League. Email the bessies@gmail.com to find out how.

It's almost Bessies' time! See you there!

The New York Dance and Performance Awards

 produced in partnership with Dance/NYC

Monday, October 15

at The Apollo Theater

 

2012 Host: Elizabeth Streb

Presenters include Marina Abramovic, luciana achugar, Ron Brown, Brenda Bufalino, Archie Burnett, Bebe Neuwirth, Charles Reinhart, David Thomson, and Wendy Whelan, among others.

Paul Taylor will receive the 2012 Bessie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Dance, and Alice Teirstein will be honored with 2012 Bessie Award for Service to the Field of Dance.

The ceremony will also feature live performances by the Trisha Brown Company, recipient of last year’s Bessie for Lifetime Achievement, and Souleymane Badolo, the 2012 recipient of the Juried Bessie Award, known for his contemporary interpretations of traditional African dance. 

Doors open: 7pm
Award ceremony: 8pm

Food and drink available in the theater

Tickets $10 
Available at the Apollo box office and at www.apollotheater.org

Click here for more information on the 2012 Bessies and the pre-show benefit cocktail reception and after-party. 

The Apollo Theater  253 West 125th Street, Manhattan (directions)

Discuss the "Bessies" (NY Dance and Performance Awards)

You're invited to join a discussion of the New York Dance and Performance Awards ("Bessies") on Monday, October 1.

Panelists include Lucy Sexton (Director, The Bessies), Andrew Dinwiddie (Bessies Selection Committee) and others TBA.

Come talk about the recent changes in the NY Dance and Performance Awards, The Bessies. Hear about the awards process, its subcommittees and categories, and its goals and aspirations. And offer your questions, suggestions, thoughts and concerns. All are welcome.

Monday, October 1 (7pm)

Cathy Weis Studio

537 Broadway, 3rd Floor (between Prince and Spring Streets), Manhattan

(map/directions

Lucy Sexton responds to Gia Kourlas' Bessie Awards criticism

The Bessies are not only back but in boldface--and drawing some heat. See the recent critique by Gia Kourlas in The New York Times here.

Lucy Sexton, Director, NY Dance and Performance Awards (Bessies), replies here:

I’m writing in response to Gia Kourlas’s recent article on the changes in The NY Dance and Peformance Awards, The Bessies (Aug 11, 2012). Ms. Kourlas says the awards “absolutely” matter, and that they are engaged in a mission not only to recognize outstanding dance and performance, but to “make the world care about dance.” But she takes issue with the creation of subcommittees within the Bessies Selection Committee, which are charged with looking at work in different areas of NYC’s large and diverse dance landscape. She rather inexplicably concludes that the changes mean the awards are “focused on raising the profile of the Bessies rather than on artistic achievement.”

The total number of the Bessie Selection Committee was raised from 15-20 to a total of 41, so there are more eyes looking at more work. The members work in subcommittees so there can be more rigorous considerations of specific areas of dance. The intent, and indeed the result, of the new structure is that artistic achievement is more central to the discussions. And to state the obvious, raising the profile of The Bessies is critical to ensuring the artistic achievement recognized gets broader visibility.

Ms. Kourlas is rightly concerned with how to define the purview of the subcommittee considering more performance-oriented work. As she noted, we have recently changed the wording so it does not define the work recognized as “not dance.” The Judson movement opened up what could be considered dance. The club and performance scene in the 80s created a stew where dancers were mixing it up with people in different disciplines, from drag queens to visual artists doing performances. This is precisely why the awards are called the NY Dance and Performance Awards.

The subcommittee categories are certainly imperfect, but they are adaptive to a wide, ongoing community dialogue and a changing creative environment. The Bessies’ partnership with Dance/NYC, a branch of the national service organization, Dance/USA, has helped to extend and deepen the dialogue with a broad range of dance artists.

Our opportunity is to make clear to a non-dance-insider audience the wide spectrum of dance and performance work being considered. Making what The Bessies do more transparent and understandable to a wider audience is a step in our efforts to “make the world care about dance.”

We welcome feedback and ideas on how best to accomplish that goal.

Lucy Sexton
Director, NY Dance and Performance Awards, The Bessies
Produced in partnership with Dance/NYC
thebessies@gmail.com

Parsing the complexities of dance...and dance awards

Bessies’ New Categories Limit Definitions of Dance
by Gia Kourlas, The New York Times, August 10, 2012

Bessie Awards 2012 press conference (AUDIO)

New York Dance and Performance Awards (Bessies)

Lucy Sexton, Director

Lane Harwell, Chair, Bessies Steering Committee

2012 Press Conference at French Institute Alliance Française

Wednesday, July 18

To listen to an mp3 of the complete Bessies press conference, click here. [40:32]

Highlights

Opening performance by hip hop dancers Noel Rodriguez and Noah Cabrera from KR3TS, the company of 2011 Bessie winner Violet Galagarza

Juried Bessie Award to choreographer Souleymane Badolo by the 2012 jury--choreographers Lar Lubovitch, Yvonne Rainer and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. Badolo will be presented by Nazareth Dance Festival, an inaugural Bessies partner. In addition, a new Bessies partner, DanceForce, a statewide network of dance activists dedicated to linking artists and communities across New York State, will help to generate residencies, performances and educational events around the state for Badolo.

The Bessies will return to Harlem's historic Apollo Theater on Monday, October 15 at 8pm. "How could we not have the Bessies back at the Apollo?" asked Mikki Sheppard, the theater's Executive Producer. "We intend for them to be there forever!" Sheppard also announced that Bessie winner Badolo has already been engaged to present a major work at the Apollo in October 2013.

Click the audio link above to hear announcements of nominees for each of the following categories:

Outstanding Production (of a work performed in a larger capacity venue of more than 400 seats)

Outstanding Production (of a work that stretches the boundaries of a traditional or culturally specific form)

Outstanding Production (of a work performed in a smaller capacity venue of less than 400 seats)

Outstanding Production (of a work not technically considered dance but happening in and influencing dance in New York)

Outstanding Revived Work

Outstanding Visual Design

Outstanding Sound Design or Composition

Outstanding Emerging Choreographer

Outstanding Performer (of a work performed in a larger capacity venue of more than 400 seats)

Outstanding Performer (of a work that stretches the boundaries of a traditional or culturally specific form)

Outstanding Performer (of a work performed in a smaller capacity venue of less than 400 seats)

Outstanding Performer (of a work not technically considered dance but happening in and influencing dance in New York)

The Bessies: The New York Dance and Performance Awards,

produced in partnership with Dance/NYC

For further information, click here.

Sex. Real. Good. Movement Research-style.

MOVEMENT RESEARCH FESTIVAL SPRING 2012
PUSH IT. REAL. GOOD. 

presents

Let's talk about sex

Friday, June 1, 6-7:30PM

Choreographers, erotica writers, and performance artists

talk about doin' it in the 21st Century. 

Diana Cage

Aimee Herman

John Jasperse

Ishmael Houston-Jones

Antonio Ramos

Lucy Sexton

Moderated by Jillian Peña, Dean of the School of Sex Research at Movement Research and Erin Markey, Assistant Dean

$5 ($4 with Day Pass)

Location:

The Center at West Park
West Park Presbyterian Church
165 West 86th Street (corner of Amsterdam Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)

For more information on this and other festival activities, click here.

What brings joy

The world is a fracking mess...

...and then, there's dance. And the people who make it. And so. much. more. But let's stay with dance for the moment.

On Monday night, New York's dance world celebrated a sample of its best. I say "sample" because, of course, there's still a lot of excellent territory out there that even the new and improved Bessie Awards have yet to cover. However, it was exhilarating to sit in Harlem's world-famous Apollo Theater (thank you, Mikki Shepard) with its grand history of Black American entertainment, and watch so many people of color presenting or receiving awards. It was a good visual, which made its point just by being there with no particular political fanfare. Just do it!

What grown-up glamor and fun, too--from the big opening by talented kids from Harlem School of the Arts (choreography by Aubrey Lynch) to MC Bebe Neuwirth channeling the crush everyone has on Marcelo Gomes to David White--who started it all, way back in 1984--reminding us that his muse, dance educator Bessie Schonberg advised us to "get wild." Good advice to this day.

Photos aren't posted yet, but The Bessies Web page, hosted by Dance/NYC (thank you, Lane Harwell), now lists all the presenters, nominees and recipients (among whom, I'm particularly thrilled to note, were the team of Ishmael Houston-Jones, Chris Cochrane and Dennis Cooper for the revival of Them; Walter Dundervill for Outstanding Visual Design in Aesthetic Destiny 1: Candy Mountain; young tap dancer Caleb Teicher; choreographer Beth Gill; Raushan Mitchell; Wendy Whalen; Violeta Galagarza; and Trisha Brown). But, really, I was happy for everyone and was having such a rollicking good time, that I feared I might just pitch out of my box seat. Look out below!

You'll find contact information for the Bessies' dynamic new producer Lucy Sexton, assistant Heather Robles and the entire current selection committee at this link. Get in touch and get involved with what Sexton is calling the New York Dance and Performance League.

Brahms "Bravo" LaFortune visits with Queensborough Community College students (c)2011, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

QCC students entertained by Bravo (c)2011, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

The next day, I had the joy of welcoming Brahms "Bravo" LaFortune to each of my two classes in Introduction to the Art of Dance at Queensborough Community College. Bravo visited us to introduce and screen a new documentary on house dancing--Check Your Body At The Door--produced by my longtime colleague Sally Sommer, dance historian and critic, and directed by Charles Atlas and the late Michael Schwartz.

Bravo on the move (c)2011, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Among many other spectacularly talented dancers like Archie Burnett and Brian "Footwork" Green, Bravo can be found in the doc, dancing his fool head off in underground clubs, dancing solo in empty elevators, mimicking and slyly do-si-do-ing with people on the street, and generally being the graceful, energetic, highly-opinionated charmer he proved to be in his almost non-stop interactions with my students and choreographer Emily Berry's dance majors. We all love Bravo and are grateful to Sommer for acknowledging the house dancing community and documenting this important cultural phenomenon.

L to r: Eva Yaa Asantewaa; Emily Berry (QCC Dance instructor/Dance Coordinator); Brahms "Bravo" LaFortune

Check it all out at Check Your Body At The Door where you can view photos and video clips, learn more about the dancers and certainly get yourself a copy of the DVD.