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Soledad Barrio with Antonio Granjero (photo: Jesse Rodkin)
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| Nai-Ni Chen in Truth Bound (photo: Sylvia Chiang) |
New York, NY (December 16, 2022) – The NY Dance and
Performance Awards, the Bessies, New York City’s premier
dance awards honoring outstanding creative work in the field,
announced tonight the 2022 award recipients at the 38th annual
Bessie Awards. Porshia A. Derival, Executive Director of H+ | TOTEM Productions, hosted
this year’s event, which was held at Chelsea Factory.
A complete list of the 2022 awards follows below.
Derival welcomed
artists and supporters of the New York dance community who
gathered to celebrate the nominees and awardees. Bessie Awards
were presented to artists for outstanding choreographer/creator,
performer, sound design/music composition, visual design,
outstanding revival, and breakout choreographer—an award that
honors an artist who has made an exceptional leap in their
career this past year. All of the awardees and nominated artists
in these categories received a $500 honorarium, courtesy of a
grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
Tatiana Desardouin was honored with the 2022 Juried Bessie Award, which
recognizes a choreographer who exhibits some of the most
interesting and exciting ideas in dance in New York City today,
and whose work deserves to be seen more outside the city. The
award comes with touring support and other engagement
opportunities from New York State DanceForce. The 2022 Bessies
Jury of three acclaimed choreographers, LaTasha Barnes, Molissa
Fenley, and Abby Zbikowski, selected Desardouin.
Emily L. Waters, a senior program associate in the Arts and Culture program at The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, was honored with the 2022 Bessies Angel Award for her leadership and advocacy on behalf of dance.
Two
previously announced awards were also presented. Choreographer and
dancer Nai-Ni Chen
was posthumously honored with the 2022 Lifetime Achievement in
Dance Award. Christine
Jowers, founding editor of The Dance Enthusiast, received the 2022 Award for Service to the Field of Dance.
The ceremony featured a performance of Nai-Ni Chen’s
stunning Crosscurrent,
performed by Rio Kikuchi and Esteban Santamaria. The evening
also included an exhilarating pop-up performance by Passion
Fruit Dance Company’s Tatiana Desardouin,
with Mai Lê Hô, Lauriane Ogay, and Gyeun "Lobel" Jeong.
The
Bessies also honored members of the dance community who passed
away since the last Bessies ceremony. The In Memoriam section
was presented by Sangeeta Ghosh
Yesley and Paz Tanjuaquio.
Other presenters included Abdiel, Marija Abney,
Michele Byrd-McPhee, PeiJu Chien-Pott, Natsha Diggs, maura nguyen donohue, Brinda Guha, Anabella Lenzu, Kyle Marshall, Nicky Paraiso, Tiffany Rea-Fisher,
george emilio sanchez, Lucy Sexton, Philip Treviño, and André
M. Zachery.
The 38th annual Bessie Awards was produced by H+
| TOTEM Productions.
THE 2022 NY DANCE AND PERFORMANCE AWARD RECIPIENTS
AND CITATIONS:
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT IN DANCE AWARD
Nai-Ni Chen
Nai-Ni
Chen was a force in the dance community with her unique
choreographic body of work that fuses Eastern cultural forms of
Chinese dance and the Western world of modern dance. Her vision
of the immigrant’s journey of crossing cultures and adapting to
a new home provided endless inspirations and opportunities for
creative expressions that enrich the human experience.
SERVICE TO THE FIELD OF DANCE AWARD
Christine Jowers
Jowers
is an example of generosity, dedication, and commitment in
service to the dance field. After her career as a dancer
performing in England and the U.S., Jowers devoted herself to
supporting dance artists, to writing about them with respect,
truth, and love. In times when dance reviews and writers are
almost extinct, when publications and dance journalists are
disappearing, Jowers and The
Dance Enthusiast value and care about dance criticism and
documenting performances. She has and continues to ignite the
dance community with passion, curiosity, and conversation.
BESSIES ANGEL AWARD
Emily L. Waters
Waters
is being recognized for her advocacy of dance in times when
artists need it the most; for ensuring dance is brought to the
table as a former professional dancer; for being a trailblazer
for dance in the philanthropic setting.
OUTSTANDING CHOREOGRAPHER/CREATOR
Leslie
Cuyjet
Blur at
Open Call at The Shed
Intimate,
vulnerable, bold, and enigmatic, this visceral piece is a quiet
merging of Cuyjet’s inner worlds. With sequences of highly
orchestrated, improvised structures that are exacting, charged,
and in the present, Cuyjet creates a vast, living landscape.
Bill
T. Jones, Janet Wong, and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company
Deep Blue Sea at
Park Avenue Armory
For
a visionary, large-scale work incorporating around 100 dancers
and a nontraditional use of space and production elements,
culminating in a creation both universal and deeply personal.
Anna
Sperber
Bow Echo, presented by XØ Projects Inc and The Old American Can Factory
With keen attention
to detail in choreographic structures that relate to the
environment, Sperber creates a visual, exciting rooftop ritual
with movement invention and materials that break the
conventional expectations of an audience.
Raúl
Tamez
Migrant Mother
for Limón Dance Company at The Joyce Theater
For
creating a tributary piece to the immense grief and emotional
pain that migrant mothers endure. From technically complex
choreography, using space and bodies to sculpt eye-catching
negative and positive space, to the blended use of modern-day
sound bites with music, this is a deeply somatic experience.
OUTSTANDING PERFORMER
Soledad
Barrio
in
Soledad Barrio &
Noche Flamenca at The Joyce Theater
For
stamping the fire and passion of flamenco into the heart of the
observer, making everyone want to be from Spain. Barrio’s
blended precision, rhythm, and expressiveness do not just move
with the music, but sing back to it.
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Kayla Farrish
|
Kayla
Farrish
in
December 8th by
Kayla Farrish in collaboration with Belinda McGuire, the Eva
Yaa Asantewaa Solo for Solo Showing at Gibney
For
a tumble and waterfall of physicality and phrasing that at times
takes one’s breath away, and at times quickens the blood.
Farrish is in full control from start to finish, and is also
able to offer vulnerability and heart through her performance.
Nikolai
McKenzie Ben Rema
in
A Jamaican Battyboy in
America by Arthur Avilés at Hemispheric Institute at NYU
and BAAD!
For
interpreting and adding to a revival with precision, poise, and
evident generosity of spirit. McKenzie Ben Rema becomes at once
a channel and a generating vessel with bold and mesmerizing
dancing.
Antonio
Ramos
in
Puro Teatro by
luciana achugar at The
Chocolate Factory Theater
Ramos embraces
achugar’s choreographic vision to create a living landscape
where bodies are in the present, joyful, courageous, vulnerable,
funny, connecting, and intersecting with one another. Ramos’s
movements of improvised structures are exacting, highly-skilled,
charged, and playful.
OUTSTANDING
REVIVAL
Set and Reset/Reset (2021)
Choreographed and co-directed by Abigail Yager, co-directed by Jamie Scott with assistance from Diane Madden, performed by Candoco Dance Company at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
For a dynamic,
fully embodied vision/revision of Trisha Brown’s Set and Reset (1983).
Candoco dancers fully speak Brown’s vocabulary while also
creating new ways to speak. With the fabric Brown laid out for
them, the dancers create a vibrant tapestry that shimmers and
moves with fluidity and grace. Beautiful and moving, the dancers
leave the audience with much to rethink.
OUTSTANDING SOUND DESIGN / MUSIC COMPOSITION
Marc
Álvarez (arrangement)
For Carmen by Johan
Inger, performed by
Compañía Nacional de Danza at The Joyce
Theater
For
remixing music using Bizet’s original composition with a
contemporary twist. There is a seamless transition from
classical to contemporary that makes the music one.
OUTSTANDING VISUAL
DESIGN
New
Affiliates (Set and Costume Design) – Ivi Diamantopoulou,
Jaffer Kolb, and Rashaad Newsome Studio with Truman T. Brown
Jr., Howie B., Kimberly Jones, and Randy Rosenthal
For
Assembly by Rashaad
Newsome at Park Avenue Armory
For
an exciting multi-arts spectacle, a true celebration of African
culture disseminated into current society supporting dance,
music, and poetry through textiles and visual art. An impressive
amalgamation of unsuspecting elements making a unified whole.
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Princess Lockerooo (photo: Ben Hider)
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OUTSTANDING BREAKOUT CHOREOGRAPHER
Princess Lockerooo
For
artistry that moves the audience from spectator to fellow
performer quite seamlessly, teaching about dance culture in the
process. Princess Lockeroo is a multifaceted artist who has
always been fully dedicated to her craft and does not miss any
details in creating a full, immersive experience for her
audience.
2022 JURIED BESSIE AWARD
Tatiana Desardouin
Desardouin’s “groove,” embraces the
relationship of time with an individual’s true nature. Each
moment becomes fully realized and progresses forward to reveal
the dancer's authentic self. Just as her “Passion Fruit Seeds”
provide a sourceable root for individuals to create and sustain,
she and her works are a galvanized source of inspiration and
dopeness for the Street and Club dance community and everyone
she encounters.
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 38 years. Known as “The Bessies” in honor of the late
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,
sound design/music composition, and visual design. Nominees are
chosen by a selection committee composed of artists, presenters,
producers, and writers. All those working in the dance field are
invited to join the Bessies Membership as members and
participate in annual discussions on the direction of the awards
and nominate individuals to serve on the selection committee.
For more information about The Bessies, visit www.bessies.org.
The 2021–2022 Bessie Awards
Selection Committee: Ronald K. Alexander, Maria Baranova
Suzuki, Maria Bauman, Charles Vincent Burwell, Yvonne H. Chow,
Yoshiko Chuma, Sangeeta Ghosh Yesley, Valerie Green, Anabella
Lenzu, Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte, Tiffany Rea-Fisher, Elgie
Gaynell Sherrod, Ivan Talijančić, and Philip Treviño.
The Bessies Steering
Committee: Yvonne H. Chow, Stanford Makishi, maura nguyen
donohue, Nicky Paraiso, Carla Peterson, Craig Peterson, Tiffany
Rea-Fisher, george emilio sanchez, Paz Tanjuaquio (chair),
Laurie Uprichard, and Charmaine Warren.
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