The 2017 Bessie Awards nominations (and two winners)!

With Managing Director Heather Robles (left)
and Executive Director Lucy Sexton (right)
opening a press conference at Gibney Dance Center,
the Bessies organization announced two early winners
and a slate of nominees for the 2017 Bessies Awards
set for October 9 at NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.
(photo: Eva Yaa Asantewaa)

2017 Outstanding Emerging Choreographer Award:
Will Rawls

"for creating astute, genre-eluding work that explores the relationship between movement and language and delves deeply into ideas of transmission, translation, and authorship; and for his multifaceted artistry as choreographer, writer, editor, and curator, expanding the presence of dance and performance."

2017 Juried Bessie Award:
Abby Zbikowski 

"recognized for her rigorous and utterly unique development of an authentic movement vocabulary, employed in complex and demanding structures to create dances of great energy, intensity, surprise, and danger. (2017 Jury: Kyle Abraham, Brenda Bufalino, and Beth Gill)

The 2017 Bessie Awards Nominations

Outstanding Production

Vanessa Anspaugh
The End of Men; An Ode to Ocean
Joyce Unleashed at Abrons Art Center

Kader Attou of CCN de la Rochelle/Cie Accrorap
OPUS 14
Fall for Dance at New York City Center

Bridgman / Packer
Voyeur
Sheen Center

Nora Chipaumire
portrait of myself as my father
BAM Fisher

Antony Hamilton
Meeting
La MaMa and Performance Space 122, COIL 2017

Jessica Lang
Thousand Yard Stare
The Joyce Theater

Ligia Lewis
minor matter
American Realness at Abrons Art Center

Taylor Mac
A 24-Decade History of Popular Music
St. Ann’s Warehouse/Pomegranate Arts

Crystal Pite
The Statement
Performed by Nederlands Dans Theater
New York City Center

Sébastien Ramirez and Honji Wang
Monchichi
BAM Fisher

Abdel Salaam
Healing Sevens
Featuring Forces of Nature Dance Theatre, Asase Yaa African American Dance Theatre, Ill Style & Peace Productions, and Dyane Harvey Salaam
DanceAfrica at BAM Howard Gilman Opera House

Adrienne Truscott
THIS
New York Live Arts

Outstanding Revived Work

Variations on Themes from Lost and Found: Scenes from a Life and other works by John Bernd
Conceived by Ishmael Houston-Jones. Co-directed by Ishmael Houston-Jones and Miguel Gutierrez. John Bernd's music compositions arranged and re-mixed by Nick Hallett. Consultation by Jennifer Monson.
Danspace Project Platform 2016: Lost and Found

About Kazuo Ohno
By Takao Kawaguchi
Japan Society

Stephen Petronio Company
For Trio A (1966), Chair Pillow (1969), and Diagonal (1963) by Yvonne Rainer; Goldberg  Variations (1986) by Steve Paxton; The Courtesan and the Crone (1999) by Anna Halprin
The Joyce Theater

Outstanding Performer

Yeman Brown
In Citizen by Reggie Wilson
BAM Harvey

PeiJu Chien-Pott
In Virginie Mécène’s reimagining of Martha Graham’s 1933 solo, Ekstasis
The Joyce Theater

Sean Donovan
For his body of work with The Builders Association, Faye Driscoll, Witness Relocation, Jennie MaryTai Liu, and Jane Comfort

Jonathan Gonzalez
In minor matter by Ligia Lewis
American Realness at Abrons Art Center

Julie McMillan
In KO-BU by Benjamin Kimitch
Danspace Project

Cast of Riff this, Riff that
By Ephrat Asherie Dance
River to River Festival, Atrium Plaza

Anna Schön
In Citizen by Reggie Wilson
BAM Harvey

Nicholas Sciscione
In excerpts from Steve Paxton’s Goldberg Variations
Presented by the Stephen Petronio Company
The Joyce Theater

Ensemble of the skeleton architecture, or the future of our worlds: Maria Bauman, Sidra Bell, Davalois Fearon, Marjani Forté-Saunders, Melanie Greene, Kayla Hamilton, Jasmine Hearn, Marguerite Hemmings, Nia Love, Paloma McGregor, Sydnie L. Mosley, Rakiya Orange, Leslie Parker, Angie Pittman, Samantha Speis, Charmaine Warren, Marýa Wethers, Ni’Ja Whitson, Grace Osborne and others*
Curated by Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Danspace Project Platform 2016: Lost and Found
*Edisa Weeks and Tara Aisha Willis also appeared in the cast, but are ineligible to vote on or receive awards as current Bessie Awards Committee members.

Daaimah Taalib-Din
In Eclipse: Visions of the Crescent and the Cross by Abdel Salaam
Aaron Davis Hall

Diana Vishneva
For Sustained Achievement with American Ballet Theatre

Cast of we free: DJ BLKWYNTR, Arielle Rosales, and Solo Woods, as well as Courtney Cook, Marguerite Hemmings, Jessica Phoenix and Italy Welton
By Marguerite Hemmings
Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center

Outstanding Emerging Choreographer

(* indicates award recipient)

Lela Aisha Jones

Niall Jones

Will Rawls*

Katarzyna Skarpetowska

Outstanding Music Composition/Sound Design

ICTUS ensemble/ROSAS
For Vortex Temporum
By Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker
BAM Next Wave Festival, Howard Gilman Opera House

Chris Kuklis and Will Rawls
For The Planet-Eaters: Seconds
By Will Rawls
River to River Festival, National Museum of the American Indian

Ryan MacDonald
For The End of Men, Again
By Vanessa Anspaugh
Danspace Project

Alisdair Macindoe
For Meeting
By Antony Hamilton
La MaMa and Performance Space 122, COIL 2017

Outstanding Visual Design

Nora Chipaumire
For portrait of myself as my father
By Nora Chipaumire
BAM Fisher

Taylor Mac, Niegel Smith, Machine Dazzle, Mimi Lien, John Torres, Eric Avery, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar
For A 24-Decade History of Popular Music
By Taylor Mac
St. Ann’s Warehouse/Pomegranate Arts

Paulina Olowska
For Slavic Goddesses–A Wreath of Ceremonies
By Paulina Olowska
The Kitchen

Mark Ryden and Brad Fields
For Whipped Cream
By Alexei Ratmansky
Performed by American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House

*****

Come to the 33rd annual Bessie Awards on Monday, October 9, at NYU’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets will go on sale August 1.

For more information, click here.

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Voices of The Skeleton Architecture at Gibney Dance

Charmaine Warren
(photo: Tony Turner)
Below: Ni'Ja Whitson
(photo: Flybird Photography)

The Skeleton Architecture is a vessel of Black womyn and gender nonconforming artists rooted in the rigor and power of the collective in practice. We create, organize, advocate, gather, curate, perform, play, challenge, and teach through the deep of our ancestral knowledges toward the liberated future of our worlds.

This past weekend, The Skeleton Architecture collective completed we (been) here--a unique series of private and public events (here and here) hosted by Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center and welcomed by Yasemin Ozumerzifon, Gibney's Senior Community Action Manager.

Before the collective opened its Sunday afternoon of storytelling and movement activities, I asked four member artists to reflect on their feelings about the weekend and the meaning of the work ahead.

Charmaine Warren: A community, a gathering, a time to remember self and to remember those who are part of self. A time to listen. A time to recognize. A time to honor. A time to love, a time to touch hearts. A time to cry, inside or outside. And a time to share just what we need to share with an outside audience.

Charmaine Warren identifies as "Jamaican-born performer, curator, consultant, mentor, mother, wife, sister, friend."

Ni'Ja Whitson: I participated in Friday [the private gathering for members of the collective], and I'm participating today [in the public forum]. Over the course of the planning, what has resonated and has continued to be a place for me to ruminate is how we are being in the practice of collectivizing, and the work of that, and the real love-centered and heart-centered intentionality around creating a collective and that process. So this is what I'm thinking about, and I feel excited about it, a little scared about it, because it also requires honest contribution in a way that's not just the political, educational thing that we know but your emotional depth and what are you going to contribute there. It isn't about half-in and half-out. Not that I would show up that way anywhere. But truly being in a circle that feels like family, I need to feel fully present. 

Ni'Ja Whitson identifies as "an interdisciplinary artist activating practice through movement, text, installations; a member of this growing collective; a practicing student of herbalism and African diasporic ritual, sacred practices, for over twenty years now. And I use they/them gender pronouns."

Leslie Parker: At this moment, I think I still need to process the whole thing. All that's popping in my head right now is: amazing, breathtaking. I'm overwhelmed. I'm excited. Like the turnout, the conversation, the movement, the dancing, the sharing of histories and values, the exchange...the heat! We talked about the heat. A lot of heat, just really belly gut goodness. It's been great. 

Leslie Parker identifies as "a Black woman, dancer, artist happy being in this space, loving sharing space with The Skeleton Architecture and other Black women and gender nonconforming artists. That's what's left over from what has been happening in this weekend, and I feel embraced."

Edisa Weeks: I keep coming back to the word "empowering." That's the first thing that came to my brain, empowering in the sense of how do we share resources, how do we embrace difference, how do we create space for difference, celebrate difference but, in that, celebrating community, celebrating who we are as individuals within the collective, and kind of shifting working in silos and working in isolation and shifting more towards how do we support each other and how do we disagree and agree and improvise and activate. And I come back to "empower."

Edisa Weeks identifies as "Edisa Weeks, Delirious Dances, Black artist, multidisciplinary artist and part of a larger sharing, standing on shoulders."

*****

Artists Angie Pittman, Charmaine Warren, Davalois Fearon, Edisa Weeks, Grace Osborne, Jasmine Hearn, Kayla Hamilton, Leslie Parker, Marguerite Hemmings, Marjani Forté-Saunders, Maria Bauman, Marýa Wethers, Melanie Greene, Nia Love, Ni'Ja Whitson, Paloma McGregor, Rakiya Orange, Samantha Speis, Sydnie L. Mosley, Sidra Bell and Tara Aisha Willis performed in the skeleton architecture, or the future of our worlds as part of Danspace Project's Lost and Found platform, October 22, 2016. For a round-up of reviews of that program, click here.

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We always win: Marguerite Hemmings and friends at JACK

Marguerite Hemmings
(photo: Delwin Kamara)

Look and see. Black women make and hold space within dance for everything to come through.

The latest example of this is To Make Ready Again, an evening of performance and discussion offered by Jamaica-born dance artist Marguerite Hemmings, four dance colleagues, singer/musician Solo Woods and drummer Themba Mkhatshwa. It opened at JACK, the small Brooklyn venue famously decorated with crinkly aluminum foil; its run concludes tonight at 8pm.

Inspired by the writing of Ta-Nehisi Coates, JACK plans a year-long focus on exploring and expansively defining concepts of reparations in a program entitled Reparations365: From Memory to Movement (February 2017-January 2018). One primary insight already surfaced in community discussions is that monetary value cannot be placed on historic trauma, true justice and healing. It's hard to imagine and calculate in any realistic, satisfying way. Repair and restoration come not from the outside but from within vulnerable yet profoundly resourceful individuals and their communities.

Hemmings's we free multimedia series, of which To Make Ready Again is a part, draws from her knowledge of African diasporan street dance styles, social dancing, hip hop and dancehall, and her work, she says, centers around liberation. In TMRA, she's joined by powerhouse dancers--Courtney J. Cook, Jaimé Dzandu, Katrina Reid and Italy Welton--who whisper and conspire, laugh and vocalize, activating the space in ways both protectively intimate and boldly assertive. A loving circle, a sinuous warrior force, a reservoir of care and uncomplicated joy, they channel and filter even the male vocal energy of hip hop through grounded bodies. Their frequent broad stance roots them into the floor and earth below, freeing up torsos, shoulders and arms for hair-trigger action whenever, wherever necessary. They dance the ancestors through and make their mark on a world they wish to manifest.

Black women like Hemmings--a founding member of the emerging Black women and gender non-conforming collective The Skeleton Architecture--are dancing liberation and reparation. "Bring it down, and spread it all around." And remember, "We always win."

Lighting design: Nikita Maturine
Set design: Zunnania Anderson

To Make Ready Again concludes with a performance this evening at 8pm. For information and tickets, click here.

JACK
505 1/2 Waverly, Brooklyn
(map/directions)

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