DANCE NOW's final bow

Today, DANCE NOW’s Founders and Board announced in a letter to artists, audiences and supporters that they had made the difficult decision to shutter operations as of December 31, 2021. The full text of the letter is shared below.

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Dear Beloved DANCE NOW Community,

DANCE NOW started in 1995 as a wild experiment to bring artists and audiences together through unconventional and accessible programs as a catalyst for creativity and exploration. From a small program in the Soho Arts Festival to a widening network of performance, creative development, and educational opportunities, DANCE NOW (DN) has been steadfast in our love for dancemakers and their ability to tell stories, to connect and provoke, to move and inspire. It is with a heavy heart, but also tremendous pride and gratitude, that DN shares that this is our final bow. The combined challenges of the COVID epidemic, the uncertainties around live performance, and loss of some foundational income has led the Board to this necessary decision. While the leadership announced the close of programming
by December 31st, DANCE NOW is honoring all existing commitments to artists through 2022, including the commissioning fees of 22 digital works and a creative commission for Kyle Marshall. The Fall On Demand program, featuring short dance works by The Davis Sisters, Davalois Fearon, Paul Singh, Rourou Ye, Audrey MacLean, and The Bang Group, will premiere at a virtual Watch Party on November 4, 2021 and will serve as the final performance event for DN.

Over the years, DN presented dance in more than 25 traditional and unconventional venues throughout NYC, and became the fall kick-off to the dance season. In 2003, DN created the Dance-mopolitan series, using the intimate setting of Joe’s Pub at The Public to inspire creativity and to give audiences an up-close and personal cultural experience. In the past decade, DN has diversified its programming to help start, expand, and  advance the careers of artists through residencies, teaching and performance opportunities, including more than 25 evening-length works for Joe’s Pub. DN constantly grew our community of artists, seeking out new voices, while continuing to support and promote existing artist
relationships across many generations. In response to the challenges of COVID, DN celebrated our 25th Anniversary through a new digital platform and interactive artist-to-audience celebrations. DN has presented the work of 1,000+ choreographers and more than 10,000 performers have graced our
stages and screens.

To our partners, funders, and audiences, thank you for your faith, investment and support on this exciting adventure. To our staff, Board and advisors, thank you for helping to steer the ship over the years. To Lauren, thank you for going above and beyond in every role you’ve taken on to realize the DN vision for 13 years. And to our beautiful, brilliant and passionate community of artists, thank you for 25 years of extraordinary dance and magic.

It has been our honor and privilege to have been an ally, accomplice, advocate, and ringleader. We look forward to seeing how we can all continue to dance outside the box!

With much love,

Robin Staff, Founder & Artistic Director
Tamara Greenfield, Founder & Board Chair

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

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My body wants something different for me now.

 

 

My body wants something different for me now.

In August, I will turn 69.

A handful of people have already heard from me that I am retiring from reviewing dance and, indeed, from much engagement with writing about dance, serving on artist selection panels, speaking on panels and similar activities. Some folks have responded with shock or just surprise and sadness, especially to see a Black woman, or any rare person of color, leaving the field of dance criticism and journalism. Others have kindly expressed relief for me and even excitement that, after more than 45 years pursuing this work--I first took dance criticism courses at The New School and Dance Theater Workshop in 1974--I finally feel free to say I’ve done my do, given what I can, and now I’m reclaiming my time.

Like so many others, I have the pandemic of 2020-21 to thank for a radically-altered life.

But, actually, retiring from this work has been on my mind since before I suddenly got hired as Gibney’s curator in July 2018, a life transition that plunged me even deeper into a whole mess of unanticipated things.

However, these drawn-out months away from you all and the live performances I dearly loved have rewired me. On the physical level, I now find myself incapable of staying awake very far into the evening, making even the thought of turning up alert and receptive for night-time shows completely impossible. Seriously, my body rules it out, and I’m not going to fight that body wisdom. I cherish the extra sleep.

And on the mental level, well, my mind seems to be making its selections crystal clear. If something does not spark and hold its interest, engagement is short-lived (or never-lived). That means I might prioritize certain things and let others slide, not always rushing to be there for everything and everyone. No apologies. This is real.

But there’s unexpected fun, too, at this moment. Suddenly and brilliantly, BodyMind has skipped in the direction of healthier (and more colorful and flavorful) eating. Things I somehow just know to throw together work out well and have good health value for me. Intuition kicking in again and right on time. Again, something I’m not going to question--just make more time for and enjoy.

Listening has always been a central part of my spiritual and professional practice (and of my superpowers as an introvert). That continues. Listening to what I need is central to what’s centered. Even the things and spaces I’ve chosen to create for others during this time of uncertainty, anxiety, loss and grief--initiatives such as my Black Diaspora group for rising Black dance and performance artists and the Imagining journal at Gibney; the Black Curators in Dance and Performance group; and my monthly Zoom “séances”--are things and spaces I also happen to need for my own mental and spiritual well-being. As they serve and fulfill their purpose for others, they nourish me. These will continue and flourish. Over the next few years, I will also be shifting the areas of my focus at Gibney to better reflect the community relationships, broader concerns, and activities that matter most to me now.

I have spent decades tending an art discipline that does not get what it needs from this society. Far from it. It needs a ton of care, and working around that can be all-consuming. As I enter my elder years, I choose a wider world and a chance to reclaim some of the things I’ve had to push aside.

I thank everyone for receiving me into the world of dance and for always being, whether you knew it or not, my teachers. You have offered me a way to give back, as a writer, for all the wonder and beauty you sacrifice so much to create. With all the fierce questioning and work being done now towards true justice in the arts, I hope dance artists will also fiercely commit to making dance writing a necessary bridge to the outside world, a tool of witness, clarity of expression, openhearted sharing, much-needed documentation, and acknowledgment. Yes, a force for justice.

Eva Yaa Asantewaa

June 21, 2021

[Note: InfiniteBody will stay up, serving as a space for me to just keep saying whatever I need to say! :-D]

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

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Open Letter from Dance Artist/Educator Dwana A. Smallwood

 

 

Dear Bed Stuy:

The Arts in NYC are dying...

My name is Dwana Adiaha Smallwood. I was a premier dancer with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater from 1995 - 2007. I’ve been on the cover of Dance Magazine three times. I’ve been featured in Essence Magazine and I have been photographed by Annie Leibowitz for Vogue Magazine.  I was also featured and danced on The Oprah Show.

I took everything I learned over my many years as a professional and created a dance program in South Africa at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls. The program was designed for girls who needed validation and opportunities to harness the power within, so they too could exceed the expectations many have of black girls around the world. With dance, I was able to create a sacred space for them; that same space that saved me from the noise of the world to help me reach my goals. 

I yearned to continue that work and to create a space for the community that saved me but almost swallowed me whole.  For Bedford-Stuyvesant (still one of the most underserved communities in Brooklyn),  I wanted so desperately to be the answer to the prayer I often heard: “I wish I had a place to grow and to feel like I can be anything, do anything.” 

So in 2013, I founded and opened the Dwana Smallwood Performing Arts Center in Bed Stuy Brooklyn, a state of the art facility which is a place for artistic exchange that serves to empower and mold elite dancers and artists to develop, grow and compete on the world’s stage. Today I am writing to let you know that due to the COVID - 19 pandemic, in about four months, we will have to shut our doors…. 

I worked hard to create the space politicians said they needed, parents said they wanted, and children said they had to have. I could only imagine how many more of my community members would have had better options had they had a center like mine, to help guide them and keep them safe and provide validation to their lives. It wasn't easy to build. I almost closed before we opened. Each year since, I’ve struggled to keep the doors open and continued to offer opportunities to children and the community to thrive, but COVID-19 has hit us hard like so many other small arts institutions, and what I so dreaded, may actually be a reality. All that I have worked for may not survive. 

I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and have lived here my entire life. When I think about my upbringing, I think I had a childhood no different than anyone else in Bed Stuy. I had a single struggling mother mostly -- we were fatherless mostly -- and I was Black always. 

Somehow, through struggle, prayers, tears, hard work, the Creator, and the collective work of the community I was able to live my dream and travel the world. To most elite athletes, we would consider this to be a huge accomplishment; to make it out of millions dancing and training and auditioning to become one of only two elite dancers chosen that year. I was that girl; that black, bald, skinny, struggling girl who had made it past the expectations placed on all little dark-skinned black girls by the world. 

The Dwana Smallwood Performing Arts Center has been closed since March.  Due to NYC’s guidelines, we have not been allowed to open our doors even to rent out space. We will close for good if we don’t raise money NOW. I always wondered how something that means so much to so many and requires so little from each of us, will be allowed to die.

It would be among the greatest failures of our community if we close.

The arts have always been the answer when the healing of a nation is needed.  If and/or when this pandemic is over, the arts will be needed more than ever to replenish, refresh and rejuvenate our communities, our children, and their families.

The intention of this letter is not to ask for money (although that would be helpful and graciously accepted).  I’m asking that you help me to sound the alarm.  I have reached out to media outlets, government officials and others that I had hoped could help and some have, but in the world of fast news cycles, this message has been lost; not just for my organization but for many others like mine.

Please pass this onto ANYONE you know or think can help get this message out to the media (social, news, arts, entertainment...whatever). Any help you can offer will be appreciated.

The collective healing of our nation is going to need the ARTS. Dance is My Oxygen!

 

 
Sincerely,

Dwana A. Smallwood
Dwana Smallwood Performing Arts Center, Inc.
dwanasmallwoodpac.org
(718) 443 - 9800

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

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It's also okay to take time to grieve.

Eva Yaa Asantewaa

It's also okay to take time to grieve.

by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody


Hey, friend! How are you doing? How are you faring in this new reality?

Me? It's different from moment to moment, day to day. And that's the way I've learned to take it. Because that's the only way it's going to work. The information and guidelines and rules we're getting evolve as this coronavirus pandemic sweeps across the world, our state and our city, and we inch along towards an unknown future. We're all trying to do our best.

Well, some of us, actually, are doing our usual. Which is not helpful. It's a time for responsibility. And I'm livin' in the USA where gun sales are rising and young people have to be forced to stay away from bars.

Anyway, my fellow Americans, my fellow New Yorkers, my fellow arts folks, here's where we find ourselves.

Lord love us, the virus struck, our daily habits and plans and expectations got shut down but--damnit!--we got busy. Right away!

We've now put a flood of videos and livestreams out with everything from opera performances to yoga and meditation and cooking classes to art museum tours. Oh, thank goodness we've got the Internet and social media and the same electronic devices we'd just spent months and months complaining about and trying to spend more time away from so we could have authentic experiences with our loved ones IRL.

Now, we're finally making good on those old resolutions to study French or learn to knit or...I don't know...maybe master brain surgery on YouTube. And there's just so much out there to dig into while we wait for the world to turn right-side up again (or what we thought was right-side up...that's debatable).

There's more and more and more online content every day for the stuck-at-home. I've got friends and colleagues busy making some of it. And even this blog post! Because we're resilient, we're creative, we want to keep active before we lose our natural minds. It's really fantastic, isn't it?

It's also exhausting.

All the time in the world now to catch up with the tons of unread books I have here, the millions of unread articles I have saved in the Pocket app, the podcasts people keep telling me I have to hear, my Netflix list, my bag of knitting supplies, my personal writing, the two free Coursera courses I've just signed up for and--Godx, help me--my lifelong practice of introversion. And yet....

I can't. Anyone else feel me on this? I just can't.

I wish I could put this enforced isolation time to good use. But....

It even took me a while to realize I could write a post like this to share with you how I'm feeling.

Because we're supposed to spring into action as if nothing, absolutely nothing could ever slow us down.

We're Americans, damn it!

We're New Yorkers, damn it!

We got through 9/11 together, and we'll power through this trauma.

And I actually think, as much as artists and folks who work with artists--particularly dance artists--are marginalized in this society, most of us have a keen sense of responsibility to community and world, a sense of generosity and mission, that moves us to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, start all over again. Right away!

I'm here to admit I'm both feeling it (that natural urge) and not feeling it.

I'm leaning in...and swerving away.

And, yeah, all of the labor I normally do (and dearly love) is dependent upon either:

1) getting wonderful artists into spaces where they will perform live in front of, I hope, densely-packed audiences (curation)

2) attending and reporting on live performances amid often densely-packed audiences (dance writing).

So, right. I've got lots of new time on my hands. But my proudest achievements, lately, involved strategic grocery shopping and the complete reorganization (and subsequent re-stuffing) of my pantry.

My newly-unfolding Spring season at Gibney is in tatters; my calendar for other New York City happenings is suddenly wiped cleaner than a subway pole first thing on a March morning. And I miss every one of you I used to encounter all the time on my sidewalk, in the lobbies and aisles of performance venues, in the corridors and studios of my workplace.

I miss you. I'm grieving. It's okay to take time to grieve a little. It's okay to take a look around and realize you don't know what to do next. You just don't know what to do. You feel overwhelmed and helpless in the face of unimaginable uncertainty. And you're no expert on any of this.

Take even just a minute. You can spare a minute.

2020. Remember when we thought this was a fresh new year with a cute name? Little did we know it was coming for us. Threatening our health, our businesses, our incomes, our socializing, our freedom to greet one another with a warm hug in the time-honored manner.

Last night, when I couldn't even relax with a Met Opera video (free!) because, I guess, the system wasn't strong enough for all the new demand on it, I threw in the towel. I went to bed, read a little, went to sleep. Sleep is also free and, occasionally, you feel refreshed when you wake up from it.

Lately, waking up from it has also been a proud achievement.

Productivity is as American (and as capitalist) as apple pie. And this Virgo, of course, would love to feel useful and productive. This blog post is actually a tilt in that direction. Look, I'm communicating with you again! But what I'm communicating is about making space for my feelings--and yours. I hope you can feel it's okay to do the same.

Take good care of yourself and all who are precious to you and a comfort to you in this difficult moment. I send much love and wishes for your safety and well-being!

Eva

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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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35th Annual Bessie Awards announced at Skirball

2019 NY DANCE AND PERFORMANCE AWARD

RECIPIENTS AND CITATIONS

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT IN DANCE

Joan Myers Brown

For helping shape American dance over six decades spent choreographing, training, and mentoring dancers at Philadanco. For championing and creating spaces for the work of African American choreographers through the formation of such seminal organizations as The International Association of Blacks in Dance. For doing it all with grace, generosity, artistry, and leadership.

OUTSTANDING SERVICE TO THE FIELD OF DANCE

Louis Mofsie

For his tireless and visionary service for more than half a century: preserving and keeping vibrant the dances, songs, and ceremonies of multiple Native American tribal traditions. Serving as leader, teacher, scholar, and emcee extraordinaire with his Thunderbird American Indian Dancers, he has toured to all 50 states, sharing and collecting dances that would otherwise be lost to history.

BESSIES ANGEL AWARD

Laurie Uprichard

For decades dedicated to dance artists and the creation of new dance works. For her stewardship of The Bessies, aiding in their inception and sustaining them for many years after. For being a leader and beloved member of every dance community she has touched.

OUTSTANDING PRODUCTIONS

Nick Cave
The Let Go at Park Avenue Armory

For creating a ritual using colorful full-body masks, a moving stream of mylar, the choral uplift of the Sing Harlem choir, and Francesca Harper’s inspired choreographic structures, the piece invites us to lose ourselves and find each other in this divisive time.

nora chipaumire
#Punk 100% POP* N!GGA at The Kitchen and Crossing the Line Festival

For a radical and passionate blast of sound, movement, confrontation, and choreographed chaos. For working at the intersection of art, politics, and social commentary to create a devastating rendering of the politics of race.

Merce Cunningham with stager Patricia Lent and Merce Cunningham Trust
Night of 100 Solos: A Centennial Event at BAM Howard Gilman Opera House

For bringing Merce Cunningham’s work to new and expanded life on his centennial. Opening his work to the bodies of brilliant dance artists from all genres to create a mesmerizing event brimming with brilliance, generosity, unity, and trust.

Tania El Khoury
As Far As My Fingertips Take Me at Under the Radar/The Public Theater

For bringing the experience of migration and border control to our most intimate place—the body. For filling the audience’s ears with a story of displacement, while drawing the journey on their arm. reaching unseen and unprotected through a wall: a global crisis is brought home in indelible ways.

OUTSTANDING PERFORMERS

Leslie Cuyjet
Sustained Achievement with Jane Comfort, Niall Jones, Juliana F. May, Cynthia Oliver, Will Rawls

For her ability to combine technical precision, astonishing energy, humor, and raw theatrical power to consistently illuminate the choreographer’s vision.

Gabrielle Hamilton
in Oklahoma!’s Dream Ballet choreographed by John Heginbotham, at St. Ann’s Warehouse

For bringing her full self to expand the boundaries of a classic American play, and its iconic dream ballet: She is powerfully sensual, fully in control, moving with intelligence, fearlessness, and aplomb.

Taylor Stanley
in The Runaway by Kyle Abraham, New York City Ballet, at the David H. Koch Theater

Combining exceptional technique, clear musicality, and a fierce devotion to the choreography, he brought down the house with a piercingly revelatory solo performed with raw abandon and emotional purity.

Shamar Watt
Sustained Achievement in the work of nora chipaumire

For expressing, embodying, and extending the choreographer’s vision, while remaining forcefully himself. For inhabiting the worlds created with a riveting coiled energy that creates a dynamic and urgent NOW in every work.

OUTSTANDING REVIVAL

Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done
Yvonne Rainer, Deborah Hay, Lucinda Childs, David Gordon, Steve Paxton, Trisha Brown, and Simone Forti, curated by Ana Janevski at the Museum of Modern Art

A critical and pivotal exhibit featuring live performances that shined a light on a moment of radical invention in the history of American modern dance. Placing the work in the larger social and political context in which it was made, and giving it new relevance in the current moment.

OUTSTANDING SOUND DESIGN / MUSIC COMPOSITION

Conrad Tao and Caleb Teicher for More Forever by Caleb Teicher at Guggenheim Works & Process

Employing an unexpected mix of timbres—a toy piano, a computerized harp, the sound of scraped sand—composer and dancer introduce sophisticated sounds into the tap landscape. The improvised score pays homage to the very roots of the dance form, as it enriches the possibilities for its future.

OUTSTANDING VISUAL DESIGN

Design Team: Jeanne Medina and Ni’Ja Whitson (Costumes), Gil Sperling featuring artworks by Wangechi Mutu and Gavin Jantjes (Video), Tuçe Yasak (Lighting)
for Oba Qween Baba King Baba by Ni’Ja Whitson, co-commissioned by Danspace Project and Abrons Arts Center

For its innovative use of projection and light, using ceiling, wall, floor, audience, and dancers’ bodies as vessel and canvas. For mixing live performance, recorded and live video, and shape-shifting costumes to create a world of beauty, power, myth, and reality.

BESSIES JURIED AWARD (Presented in July 2019)

Alice Sheppard

For boldly and authentically inventing new movement vocabularies full of supercharged physicality and nuanced detail. Working with gravity, mechanics, human connection, and momentum, she creates work of power and empowerment.

OUTSTANDING BREAKOUT CHOREOGRAPHER (Presented in July 2019)

Daina Ashbee

For using the elemental female body itself as a means to excavate and expose layered histories of violence against women. Using repetition, painful ritual, and raw and resilient bodies, her work draws the viewer into a journey of insistence and transformation.

WATCH THE BESSIES!

If you missed the awards show, catch it on Sunday, November 17, at 8pm on WNET’s ALL ARTS, a broadcast channel, streaming platform and website dedicated to arts and culture 24/7.


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 35 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 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 and participate in annual discussions on the direction of the awards and nominate members to serve on the selection committee. For more information about The Bessies, visit www.bessies.org.

The 2019 Bessie Awards Steering Committee, responsible for setting policy and providing oversight for the Bessie Awards throughout the year, is comprised of Cora Cahan, Beverly D’Anne, Jeanne Linnes, Stanford Makishi, Nicky Paraiso, Carla Peterson, Gus Solomons jr, Paz Tanjuaquio, Judy Hussie-Taylor, Laurie Uprichard, and Martin Wechsler.

The 2018–2019 Bessie Awards Selection Committee: Ronald Alexander, Elise Bernhardt, Charles Vincent Burwell, Diana Byer, Tymberly Canale, Alexis Convento, Parijat Desai, Maura Donohue, Boo Froebel, Angela Fatou Gittens, Diane Grumet, Brinda Guha, Joseph Hall, Mai Lê Hô, Iréne Hultman, Celia Ipiotis, Koosil-ja, Fernando Maneca, Lydia Mokdessi, Harold Norris, Craig Peterson, Doug Post, Rajika Puri, Tiffany Rea-Fisher, Susan Reiter, Walter Rutledge, George Emilio Sanchez, Andrea Snyder, Sally Sommer, Risa Steinberg, Carrie Stern, Catherine Tharin, Tony Waag, and William Whitener.

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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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Our Bessie Awards Winners of 2018

34th Annual Bessie Awards

The New York Dance
& Performance Awards

NYU Skirball Center

October 8, 2018

Marjani Forté-Saunders
in her Bessie-winning production
Memoirs of A . . .Unicorn
The piece also won her creative team
a Bessie for Outstanding Visual Design.
(photos: Maria Baranova) 

OUTSTANDING ‘BREAKOUT’ CHOREOGRAPHER

Mariana Valencia 

Presented in July 2018

For seamlessly blending ethnography, memoir, and observation of cross-cultural identities in choreography that engages from start to finish. For a unique vision that uses humor and sadness, reality and imagination, to push dance and performance into new territory.

2018 BESSIES ANGEL AWARD

Deborah Sale and Ted Striggles

For a lifelong commitment to supporting dance For working to better the lives of dance artists on and off the stage For warmly gathering and connecting the dance-making community across decades.

OUTSTANDING PERFORMERS

Courtney Cook

For bringing a powerhouse presence and a soulful strength to every performance A riveting performer of searing vocal work and sensuous explosive movement, who brings her rich range of dance forms and unique theatrical power to the work of Urban Bush Women, Maria Bauman and Marguerite Hemmings.

Germaine Acogny

For her fierce, fearless embrace of the “sacrificial one” in a reimagined Rite of Spring created especially for her. No longer doomed, she performs a powerful solo celebrating her heritages in dance, and women, and black women dancing. In Mon élue noire (My Black Chosen One): Sacre #2 by Olivier Dubois at BAM Fisher

Elizabeth DeMent

For her cool, intelligent presence, exquisite dancing, and ability to move seamlessly between spoken text and virtuosic dance. For a brilliantly nuanced performance, comic and serious and continuously captivating as a 17th century woman and the narrator of the piece. In 17C by Big Dance Theater BAM Harvey

Sara Mearns

Sustained Achievement in the work of New York City Ballet, Isadora Duncan, Jodi Melnick, Wang Ramirez and Matthew Bourne.

For her work as a mesmerizing ballet dancer and insatiable dance explorer, known for consummate musicality, imagination, and theatricality. For an extraordinary season in which she boldy immersed herself in work by masters of hip hop, classic modern, experimental post modern, and theater ballet.

OUTSTANDING PRODUCTIONS

David Thomson

for he his own mythical beast 

Performance Space New York

For demolishing the idea of a ‘neutral’ body in a revelatory excavation of his own mythological identity as a dancer, performer, artist, man, person. For the team creation of an inexhaustible, ecstatic, sweaty swirl of voice and movement addressing race, gender, and the many selves contained within a body.

Geoff Sobelle

for HOME 

BAM Harvey 

For exploring and exploding the relationship between house and home. For collaborating with a brilliant team using dance, illusion, live music, scenic engineering and audience interaction to create a moving, poignant and zany theatrical work.

Nami Yamamoto

for Headless Wolf 

Roulette

For an entertaining and profound journey through the range of human experience. For interweaving five distinctive performers, a puppet, and yards of paper into a total work of theater, a contemplation of birth and death and all in between.

Marjani Forté-Saunders

for Memoirs of a . . . Unicorn

Presented by New York Live Arts at Collapsable Hole 

For an installation and performance that digs underground to mine memory and mythology; For conjuring family, friends, and ancestors as she navigates a magical landscape, weaving intersecting tales into a collective memoir.

OUTSTANDING REVIVAL 

40th Anniversary Retrospective 

by Jane Comfort & Company 

La MaMa

For a program highlighting four decades of illuminating work delving into politics, family, friendship, and pure dancing. For a pivotal exploration of language, music and movement in pieces addressing social issues in ways that continue to have impact in the current moment.

OUTSTANDING SOUND DESIGN OR MUSIC COMPOSITION

Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste

For mobilizing the technologies of the age to conjure new worlds. For bringing forth hidden languages and primal presences via layered soundscapes in his own work and in collaborations with Jaamil Olowale Kosoko, André M. Zachery/Renegade Performance Group, Jonathan Gonzalez, and Will Rawls.

OUTSTANDING VISUAL DESIGN

Mimi Lien (set), Meena Murugesan (media), Peiyi Wong (installation), Tuçe Yasak (lights), and Richard Forté (set construction)

Memoirs of a . . . Unicorn by Marjani Forte-Saunders

Presented by New York Live Arts at Collapsable Hole

For creating a mythical, multi-sensory and immersive design in the industrial basement space of Collapsible Hole. For beautifully integrating all the visual elements in a way that heightened the emotional impact of the choreographer’s journey through time and memory.



LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT IN DANCE

Simone Forti

For her revolutionary, fearless, and widely influential approach to movement, pushing the boundaries of what dance could be-----in her dance constructions and improvised work. For years of investigation into the human body in motion, finding poetry in gravitational forces, the movement of animals, and the natural world.

SERVICE TO THE FIELD OF DANCE

Marya Warshaw

For her visionary work at the Brooklyn Arts Exchange creating a space for choreographers of all identities and backgrounds, and for students of all ages and incomes. For finding new and comprehensive ways to support the long process of creation through pioneering residencies and by fostering a true home for dance artists and innovators.

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Memories: FAB x MR DANCE BLOCK SALON Spring '17

FAB x Movement Research: DANCE BLOCK SALON

Abrons Arts Center -- March 28, 2017

facilitated by Eva Yaa Asantewaa

All photos 

©Deneka Peniston

Fourth Arts Block (FABnyc) paired up Movement Research for their first collaborative Dance Block Salon. The organizations invited artists from their respective communities to show work in an atmosphere of non-judgmental sharing, radical support and community building. 

I was honored and thrilled to be asked to facilitate the evening and guide the feedback sessions.

Artists showing work included Rina Espiritu, Jenny Boissiere & Dancers, Cain Coleman of ColemanCollective and Shantelle Courvoisier Jackson.

Staff, presenting artists and dancers
gather in Abrons's studio G05 before the salon.

Introducing the evening:
Nadia Tykulsker, FABnyc Director of Programs (above)
Lindsey Dietz Marchant, Movement Research Managing Director (below)

Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Above: Jenny Boissiere talks about her work.
Below: Cain Coleman performs.

Choreographer Shantelle Courvoisier Jackson,
above and below

Shantelle Courvoisier Jackson's troupe performs.

Above: Rina Espiritu listens to audience feedback.
Below: Dance artist Heather Robles hugs Espiritu after feedback session.

Small, intimate feedback groups for each choreographer
encouraged easygoing participation.

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The Bessies and arts organizations assert core values

THE NY DANCE AND PERFORMANCE AWARDS, THE BESSIES JOIN OUR COLLEAGUES IN RECOMMITTING TO OUR CORE VALUES IN THIS TIME OF CHANGE IN NATIONAL LEADERSHIP

New York, NY
January 19, 2017

As the country enters a time of change in national leadership, the following dance and performing arts organizations have marked the occasion by posting, or reposting, statements expressing their core values. The New York Dance and Performance Awards, The Bessies has gathered the links to the statements in one document; the words they contain are written entirely independently by the organizations themselves. The Bessies salute and celebrate the values expressed by these cultural organizations, and remain committed to serving a wide diversity of dance and performing artists.

May we never lose sight of who we are and what we value. May we, as American art institutions continue to be beacons of the precious freedom of expression enshrined in the First Amendment of The US Constitution.

Click on each organization name

to read its statement.

NY Dance and Performance Awards, The Bessies

The Alliance for Media, Arts, and Culture

Artichoke Dance

BAAD Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance

BAM

Brooklyn Ballet

The Chocolate Factory

Yoshiko Chuma/School of Hard Knocks

Dance/NYC

Danspace Project

The Field

Greene Space

Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center

Japan Society

La MaMa

Mount Tremper Arts

New York Live Arts

The Public Theater
(also here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BOryvmGjtRI/)

The New 42nd Street/The New Victory Theater

Jody Sperling/ Time Lapse Dance

Spoke the Hub/Gowanus Arts

Coalition of tech companies

WHITE WAVE Young Soon Kim Dance Company 

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 31 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

Follow the Bessies on Facebook / #theBessies / @bessieawards

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Serious Moonlight dance podcast launches on iTunes!

I am over the moon about Serious Moonlight, a new dance interview podcast I'm producing with Tei Blow for Gibney Dance Center's Digital Technology Initiative. (Big thanks to you, Tei!) Our first shows are finally up on iTunes. (Subscribe, please!) 

Episode 1 is a recording of my final Not The Master's Tools panel of speakers--Katy Pyle, Nia Love, Benjamin Kimitch and Kazu Kumagai. Episode 2 is a chat with Cassie Mey, archivist for the New York Public Library's Jerome Robbins Dance Division. In Episode 3, choreographer Jessica Chen talks about her blooming life and career following a devastating accident. And in Episode 4, dance artist Sydnie L. Mosley of SLMDances discusses her multifaceted work as a performer, dancemaker, scholar, educator, administrator and activist dedicated to social justice.

I hope you'll enjoy Serious Moonlight. Let's dance!

Visit and subscribe to

Serious Moonlight here.

April memorial for performer, visual artist Fred Holland [UPDATED]

Dance, theater and visual artist Fred Holland, who died of cancer on March 5 at 65, will be remembered at a public memorial at Middle Collegiate Church on Sunday, April 10, 3:30pm. Doors open at 3pm.

And there's still time to catch Tilton Gallery's witty and moving exhibition, Fred Holland: SSAPMOC, just extended now through April 23.

******

Middle Collegiate Church
112 2nd Avenue (between 1st and 2nd Avenues), Manhattan
212-477-0666
(map/directions)

Tilton Gallery
8 East 76th Street (between 5th and Madison Avenues), Manhattan
212-737-2221
info@jacktiltongallery.com
(map/directions)

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Panelists announced for April's Not The Master's Tools

Katy Pyle will discuss how The Ballez
"inserts the herstory of lesbian, queer and transgender lives"
and "disrupts the exclusionary form of ballet."
(photo courtesy of Katy Pyle)

I'm delighted 

to announce my next panel:

Not The Master's Tools IV

with presentations by

Benjamin Kimitch

Katy Pyle

Kazu Kumagai

Nia Love

sharing their experiences, discoveries, 

alternative strategies and philosophies 

as dance artists in New York

moderated by

Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Tuesday

April 5 (6-8pm)


Gibney Dance: 
Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center


It's free!

Help us spread the news,

and RSVP here!

"The Master’s Tools 

Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House"

– essay by Audre Lorde, 1984

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subscribe to InfiniteBody!

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Panelists announced for April's Not The Master's Tools

Katy Pyle will discuss how The Ballez
"inserts the herstory of lesbian, queer and transgender lives"
and "disrupts the exclusionary form of ballet."
(photo courtesy of Katy Pyle)

Not The Master's Tools IV

with presentations by

Benjamin Kimitch

Katy Pyle

Kazu Kumagai

Nia Love

sharing their experiences, discoveries, 

alternative strategies and philosophies 

as dance artists in New York

moderated by

Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Tuesday
April 5 (6-8pm)


Gibney Dance: 
Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center

It's free!

Help us spread the news,

and RSVP here!

"The Master’s Tools 

Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House"

– essay by Audre Lorde, 1984

If you like what you're reading,

subscribe to InfiniteBody!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Infinitebody

Hooray! We've got another NTMT panel in the works!

Friends, I have a blessed life. Not a perfect life but blessed. And one of the strongest blessings is being almost constantly surrounded by artists and getting to experience and think about their work. It has been a saving grace in times of personal and societal struggle. I have learned so much from artists, and that is one reason I love the opportunity to invite artists to speak at my Not The Master's Tools panels at Gibney Dance Center so that they can share what they know. Last evening's session, our third, was HIGH ENERGY, and I thank Ali Rosa-Salas, Dan Safer, Maria Bauman and Jack Ferver for their forthright and motivating contributions. Thanks also to Craig Thomas Peterson, Margaret Tudor and Nora Alami at Gibney for their welcome and support.

If you haven't yet attended a NTMT panel, know that we already have another one in the works. You will get a lot from listening to these artists.

Save Tuesday, April 5 (6-8pm)!

All of the artists on my wishlist for this panel have said yes, and I can barely wait to bring them to you. So hold April 5, tell your friends and colleagues and watch for the announcement and RSVP link. Thanks!

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Join us on Wednesday for "Not The Master's Tools Part III"

Ali Rosa-Salas

Jack Ferver

Maria Bauman

Dan Safer

We're all expecting you! So, join us this Wednesday, February 17 (6-8pm) for the third edition of Not The Master's Tools at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center.

I'm excited to be moderating a new panel including:

Maria Bauman

Jack Ferver

Ali Rosa-Salas

and

Dan Safer

sharing their experiences, discoveries, alternative strategies and philosophies as artists, arts advocates and activists in New York.

If you've joined us for previous editions of NTMT at Gibney, you know how full and valuable these discussions have been. Please don't miss your opportunity to meet and learn from our speakers, and bring your own thoughts and questions for our Q&A period.

NTMT is FREE. Please pass this announcement along to your friends and colleagues in dance and performance.

RSVP here!

We look forward to seeing you!

Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center

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

(map/directions)

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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)

If you like what you're reading,

subscribe to InfiniteBody!

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Save the date--February 17--for "Not The Master's Tools"

Ali Rosa-Salas

Jack Ferver

Maria Bauman

Great news!

Join us on Wednesday, February 17 (6-8pm) for the third edition of Not The Master's Tools at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center.

I'm excited to be moderating a new panel including:

Maria Bauman

Jack Ferver

Ali Rosa-Salas

and

Dan Safer

sharing their experiences, discoveries, alternative strategies and philosophies as artists, arts advocates and activists in New York.

Dan Safer

If you've joined us for previous editions of NTMT at Gibney, you know how full and valuable these discussions have been. Please don't miss your opportunity to meet and learn from our speakers, and bring your own thoughts and questions for our Q&A period.

NTMT is FREE. Please pass this announcement along to your friends and colleagues in dance and performance.

RSVP here!

We look forward to seeing you!

Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center

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

(map/directions)

If you like what you're reading,

subscribe to InfiniteBody!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Infinitebody