“Through the early decades of modern dance in this country, The 92nd Street Y became a safe haven for many artists who were not being presented anywhere else in New York City,” says Alison Manning, co-executive director of the Harkness Dance Center and director of the Harkness School of Dance at 92NY. Dance legends like Erick Hawkins, José Limón, Sophie Maslow, Pearl Primus, Ruth St. Denis, and Ted Shawn all performed on 92NY’s stage. Although the organization also had classes and concerts in other dance styles, it was a hotspot for modern dance in particular just as the genre was beginning to take off in the U.S.

This year, as 92NY celebrates its 150th anniversary, honoring those dance roots is at the top of the list of priorities. The organization is installing a major exhibit called “Dance to Belong: A History of Dance at 92NY,” from March 12 to October 31, in 92NY’s Weill Art Gallery. It kicks off with a one-night-only performance on March 12 meant to connect the venue’s illustrious past to the promise of what’s ahead. The Limón Dance Company will perform José Limón’s beloved There is a Time, paired with Omar Román De Jesús’ Like Those Playground Kids at Midnight. The Martha Graham Dance Company will perform Appalachian Spring Suite, paired with an excerpt from Jamar Roberts’ We The People. And Ailey II will perform a series of excerpts from Ailey classics, including The Lark Ascending, Streams, and Blues Suite, plus a premiere by Hope Boykin.

“We are highlighting that, in the moment when modern dance was wrestling into relevance in this country, The 92nd Street Y played a pretty critical role in opening doors for artists who needed space and support,” says Manning.

The programming for the upcoming performance began with Limón’s There Is a Time, she says. “The piece represents such an important message about our own 92NY history. There have been ups, there have been downs,” she explains. “And we as an institution have weathered both times of great challenge and of joy, but that we were at the forefront for many overlooked artists, during this important period in modern dance history, in providing support, time for joy, time for grief, whatever they needed to make their work.” 

The one brand-new work on the bill is a premiere by Boykin, who says it’s an expression of her gratitude to the legends who paved the path before her. Creating it for this concert was a “no-brainer” she says, since 92NY not only gave some of those legends a platform, but offered her one too: Her first full-evening show of her own took place there in 2021. “This work is a thank-you,” says Boykin. “A thank-you for the lessons, and paths made clear. This work will be a celebration of who I have become as a result of the work so many did before me.”

Putting together the March 12 program has brought home for Manning just how pivotal a role 92NY has played in the story of modern dance, and her role in stewarding that forward for the next generation. “My vision centers around trying to make sure that artists who need a platform and haven’t had an opportunity have it,” she says, “and artists who already have substantial support and known work can lift up these younger, less established artists simply by sharing the space and being presented on these same stages.”

Román De Jesús points out that this is precisely what this particular program is doing for him. The emerging choreographer has recently been racking up fellowships and awards, like the Dance Magazine Harkness Promise Award, yet he still struggles to find resources and venues to showcase his work. “To me, standing on the same stage as legendary companies and alongside fellow emerging artists symbolizes representation, inclusivity, and hope,” he says.

92NY’s long tradition of inclusivity is ongoing, and it will continue to be a place where dance history is made for many more decades to come.

The post 92NY Celebrates Its Rich Dance History as a Birthplace of Modern Dance appeared first on Dance Magazine.

The evening kicked off with the Harkness Promise Awards, presented by Harkness Foundation for Dance executive director Joan Finkelstein. Awarded to dance artists within the first decade of their choreographic career, Promise Awards include an unrestricted $5,000 grant and 40 hours of studio space (funded by the net proceeds from the Dance Magazine Awards) with no requirement for a final product. “I will ask the people in the front row to make sure your legs are close to your chairs,” Finkelstein warned with a smile before recipients Baye & Asa (Amadi “Baye” Washington and Sam “Asa” Pratt) took to the stage to perform an intense, athletic, arresting duet from their Collective Bargain. This was followed by filmed excerpts of recipient Omar Román De Jesús’ choreography performed by his company Boca Tuya, Bruce Wood Dance, and BalletCollective, showcasing slippery partnering and theatrical, offbeat imagery.

Finkelstein praised Baye & Asa for their work in which they “create political metaphors, interrogate systemic inequities, and contemporize ancient allegories,” as well as “for building theatrical contexts that simultaneously celebrate, implicate, and condemn the characters onstage, and for your courage and heart in confronting our contemporary reality of violence while communicating the absolute necessity for empathy.” During their acceptance speech, Pratt reflected, “In a contemporary world, there’s a lot of pressure to put yourself into a camp, to distill, succinctly and uncompromisingly, what you believe and where you stand. I think dance is uniquely positioned as an art form that can liberate thought into indeterminacy and to widen toward multiplicity instead of narrowing towards one singular thesis. Art remains one of the most advanced pieces of technology we have as a species.”

Presenting to De Jesús, Finkelstein said he was being recognized for his choreography “that blends virtuosity and naturalism to mine issues of identity, love, queerness, injustice, Latinidad, and the quest for community and agency, and for articulating and implementing Boca Tuya’s mission to create visibility for, support, and uplift emerging Latinx dance artists and choreographers.” In accepting the award, De Jesús said, “As artists, it is vital that we hold on to the hope of our own promise. As we strive for visibility and the capacity to dream without boundaries,” he hoped that we would continue to ask each other the questions that he said have granted him his success and visibility: What do you need? What do you want? How can I help you?

The evening moved from looking to the future to looking to the past, as editor at large Wendy Perron spoke about the dance artists who were recognized with the first posthumous Dance Magazine Awards. “I’ve been so immersed in dance history, in both my teaching and my writing,” Perron said, “that the four people I’m about to tell you about are very much alive for me.” While tracing their biographies, Perron lovingly illuminated lesser known connections of these well known figures—Syvilla Fort’s collaboration with John Cage when she was a student leading to Cage’s innovation of prepared piano; Gregory Hines’ influence on Savion Glover, Dianne Walker, and Jason Samuels Smith (all Dance Magazine Award recipients); Pearl Primus being pointed to the New Dance Group by a fellow student at Hunter College—Perron’s mother; Helen Tamiris choreographing the 1946 revival of Showboat, in which Primus had the top dancing role—and the impact they had in the words of their contemporaries and biographers.

Harlem Stage managing director Eric Oberstein spoke in honor of Bijayini Satpathy after a video excerpt of her Call of Dawn, which showcased the Odissi artist’s marriage of imagination with technical mastery and seemingly effortless musicality. Oberstein, who began working with Satpathy when he worked at Duke Performances and she was a principal at Nrityagram, recalled being stunned when a few years later, she chose to leave Nrityagram, and was unnerved to see a hint of nervousness from such a preternaturally calm person. He recounted the subsequent process of producing Satpathy’s critically acclaimed solo show ABHIPSAA: A Seeking, concluding, “She has taught me that it’s okay to not always know what lies beyond the horizon, but to trust in what you can bring to this world that is uniquely you.”

Satpathy was unable to attend the ceremony, but recorded an acceptance speech from her home in India. “Odissi, to me, now belongs to the world,” she said. “Like any other dance, it has its specific cultural roots. What is very precious and beautiful about Odissi, even though it is deeply rooted in its tradition, is it offers an expanded capacity of imagination, beyond time, beyond borders, beyond its cultural specificity. To have worked with its expanded capacity in education and training, in choreography and performances, has been a great, great blessing and privilege.” She accepted the award on behalf of all practitioners, gurus, custodians, scholars, and architects of Odissi of the past and present.

A half-dozen dancers turned up the temperature with a high-energy performance excerpted from Maria Torres‘ The Pan-American Nutcracker Suite—Reimagined, showing off rapid-fire footwork and gleeful partnering. Tony nominated actress Daphne Rubin-Vega was on hand after to present to Torres. Rather than run through the groundbreaking choreographer’s career and accomplishments (“You can Google who Maria Torres is,” Rubin-Vega drawled), she shared that when she and Lin-Manuel Miranda were doing promotion for In the Heights, an interviewer asked Miranda about what impact Rubin-Vega had on him, as the first Latina performer he saw on Broadway. “Lin said, ‘Well, Daphne was not the first I saw on Broadway. It was Maria Torres,’ ” Rubin-Vega said. “It made me fizz up with joy, to know that we stand on the shoulders of those that came before. In no uncertain terms, when all doors were closed, this is a sister who created jobs and opportunities for others who looked like me, and who didn’t look like me. I am here on purpose. And that is because of Maria Torres.”

After taking to the podium, Torres said, “I’m reminded of the journey that brought me to this moment. A journey that filled me with dreams, challenges, and the unwavering belief that dance can transcend barriers and transform lives.” She recalled eagerly paging through Dance Magazine as a teenager, imagining herself at a podium like this one, “speaking about my heritage, and my body type, which did not conform to the norm.” She showed off her sparkly, curve-hugging dress, which she had selected for the occasion for just that reason. Torres also credited her husband with rekindled her love for dance and her career at a point where she was ready to walk away, and late Ailey School director Denise Jefferson for supporting and comforting her when she was struggling with the death of her mother. She concluded with a pledge “to continue my lifelong commitment to dance education, to strive for excellence in all that I do, and to inspire and empower future generations of dancers,” and noted that her mother had made her promise two things: to teach, and, when she made it up to that podium, to speak Spanish—which Torres did.

Antoine Hunter PurpleFireCrow performed his Beat of Earth alongside members of his Urban Jazz Dance Company, standing downstage to sign Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song” while five dancers embodied the epic, emotional track. President and CEO emerita of the International Association of Blacks in Dance Denise Saunders Thompson, presenting Hunter his award in a poetic, deeply felt speech, said, “Dance runs deep in his body. Dance has served him well. It has been a vehicle that has opened doors, broken down barriers—probably put some into place as well—and provided a language to communicate beyond the spoken word. His choreography transcends his persona: Black, Indigenous Blackfoot and Cherokee, Deaf, disabled, two-spirited. Antoine Hunter listens with his body and his heart. Antoine frees us with his rhythm, his style, his sensuality, his musicality, his fullest self—that’s his superpower.” Saunders Thompson invited the audience to imagine the life he has led in a hearing world, concluding, “We can learn so much more from Antoine Hunter.”

Hunter’s acceptance speech, interpreted from American Sign Language by Rorri Burton (who shared ASL interpretation duties with Selena Flowers throughout the evening), began with the dance artist thanking Thompson for her support. “You have welcomed me in the Black family. We all need a home. Thank you for being that home.” He reintroduced himself by teaching the audience his sign name before explaining how dance saved his life. “When you can’t express yourself,” he signed, “you can feel like you’re losing your mind. You’re not able to make those connections. When someone is finally able to listen to you, you find a place where you feel at home.” He continued that, “Just because you have the ability to hear, does not mean you know how to listen. You have to learn to listen. It happens with your heart, with your spirit. It happens when you’re understanding where someone is coming from. Open your mind. Open your heart. Open your spirit.” He encouraged everyone watching and listening to know that everyone has a story worth telling, and if you don’t see other people like you out in the world, to create the space you want to see so others can find you and build a home together. “Folks in the Deaf community and in the disabled community bring more power to the dance community as a whole. We don’t want to be a token, we don’t want to be here and gone. We want to build family.”

In honor of Alicia Graf Mack, recent Juilliard graduates Rachel Lockhart and Waverly Fredericks—both from the first class admitted by Graf Mack after she took the helm of the school’s dance division five years ago—performed River, choreographed by Lockhart. Before beginning to list Graf Mack’s many accomplishments, the indomitable Judith Jamison asked wryly, “How many things can you do in the short time you’ve been on this earth? It’s amazing.” The artistic director emerita of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater recalled, laughing, how Graf Mack came to her shortly before she was meant to sign a contract to dance with Ailey and told her that her heart was still with Arthur Mitchell and Dance Theatre of Harlem.

But when she finally joined Ailey, Graf Mack didn’t rest on her laurels, throwing herself into modern dance technique so she could dance everything from Hans van Manen to Rennie Harris. “If any challenge threatens to stop her all-encompassing trajectory,” Jamison said, “she comes in and out of it stronger, daring you to get in the way of her traveling 32 fouettés.” Jamison praised Graf Mack’s grace and grit, and how she embodies caring about dance, its future, and transmitting that it’s about more than just steps. “I wish I could be around for another hundred years and see what else you’ll do.”

Graf Mack thanked “the queen diva” Jamison for being her north star and for welcoming her into Ailey, which “reminded me daily that we represent something larger than ourselves.” She remembered telling her parents, “I want to dance professionally so badly that if Arthur Mitchell wants me to be a tree in the background for the next 10 years, I am going to be the best dang tree he has ever seen.” She also recounted being a painfully shy child, “but I knew even then I had a superpower. I could move people, touch them, transform their hearts, engage their imagination, and transform a moment with movement.” She recalled the teachers and mentors who said “yes” to her, and her thought that she would never teach herself because she knew the dedication it takes to raise a dancer. “I thought performing was my purpose, my calling. Nope,” she giggled. “Now I know being a teacher or a mentor behind a young person’s inspired performance, or just seeing an ounce of your spirit living in them, is the most enduring affirmation of purpose. I now have the opportunity to pass all of the yeses I received on to the next generation.”

Frances Lorraine Samson brought a breath of fresh air into the theater with a deceptive sense of ease in a windswept, joyful performance of the “Primavera” section of José Limón’s 1971 Dances for Isadora.

Martha Graham Dance Company artistic director Janet Eilber laughed, “So many hard acts to follow tonight,” as she took to the microphone. “But when I was asked to introduce Norton Owen, I said yes, that’s so easy, everyone knows and loves Norton, with his warm, welcoming manner, his humor, his curiosity, and how you always leave a conversation with him feeling smarter than when you started.” She spoke warmly of his long history with Jacob’s Pillow and how his interest in and devotion to the site’s archives and history led him, at a moment when American dance was finally beginning to acknowledge its own past, to define a job that didn’t exist at the time, eventually becoming the organization’s director of preservation. The Pillow’s Norton Owen Reading Room, she said, “is where they house their best interactive offering: Norton. He’s always there, ready to welcome you and to help you dive into the latest archival discovery. His work has been so inspired, and so welcoming, that he has helped the entire field celebrate and embrace its past.”

Owen shared that the Dance Magazine Awards had been on his radar since he began reading the magazine as a teenager in Alabama, and that he first attended them with his friend Bessie Schoenberg to see Hanya Holm receive her 1990 award. As he told it, Holm was at the end of the evening, which stretched quite late, and when the 97-year-old finally had her turn at the podium, he recalled, “Perhaps mindful of how long the evening was running, she got up from her seat onstage, approached the microphone with her little old lady steps, and said, ‘Thank you.’ And went back and sat down.” Owen shared how, with his mother, he got to see Natalia Markarova and Margot Fonteyn perform in Alabama, and also how Dance Magazine “captured my imagination and gave me a window on a world that existed beyond my life in Birmingham.” Jacob’s Pillow, a “dance utopia,” is every bit as magical to him today as it was when he first arrived there so many years ago. “To end on a note of gratitude,” he concluded, “as Hanya Holm said: Thank you.”

The last performance of the evening featured bassist Eduardo Bello, Music From the Sole’s Leonardo Sandoval, and 13-year-old 92NY School of Dance student Mikaylah Arce in a mesmerizing, musical melding of contemporary and tap dance. At its conclusion, Frederic Seegal presented the final award of the evening: the Chairman’s Award, which was given to dance educator, dance education advocate, and philanthropist Jody Gottfried Arnhold. “Without Jody,” he said succinctly, “I don’t think there would be dance education the way it is in New York. She is the mentors’ mentor.”

Arnhold, who received a standing ovation when she stepped onstage, said being honored in such company was “humbling. As a young dancer, waiting for the monthly delivery of my Dance Magazine was everything. I never dreamed I would one day stand here. Life is full of surprises.” She accepted the award on behalf of the 500 certified dance teachers currently teaching in New York City public schools, teaching artists, and all dance artists who find themselves working with young people. “I hear this all the time: Where is the next Alvin Ailey? Martha Graham? Paul Taylor? José Limón? I know where they are. They’re in our preK-12 public schools right now, and they deserve a dance teacher.” Sharing her journey to advocating for dance for every child in every school, she left the audience with a plea to remember one key, oft-repeated phrase: “There is no dance without dance education.”

The post The 2023 Dance Magazine Awards Celebrated the Power of Dance to Transcend Barriers appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Comings & Goings

At American Ballet Theatre, Catherine Hurlin and Roman Zhurbin have been promoted to principal, Breanne Granlund, Sung Woo Han, Betsy McBride, Chloe Misseldine and SunMi Park to soloist. Daniel Camargo has joined as a principal. These appointments go into effect on September 1.

Yuliia Moskalenko has joined Miami City Ballet as a principal.

At Oklahoma City Ballet, Autumn Klein has been promoted to principal, and Benjamin Tucker has been named principal character artist and associate rehearsal director. Roylan Ramos Hechavarria has joined as a principal.

Carly Wheaton has joined Oregon Ballet Theatre as a soloist.

At Birmingham Royal Ballet, Yaoqian Shang and Miki Mizutani have been promoted to principal, Beatrice Parma, Yu Kurihara, Max Maslen and Lachlan Monaghan to first soloist. Riku Ito has joined from Northern Ballet as a soloist.

At The Royal Ballet, Joseph Sissens has been promoted to first soloist, Annette Buvoli, Ashley Dean, Leticia Dias, Mariko Sasaki, Lukas B. Brændsrød, Leo Dixon, David Donnelly and Téo Dubreuil to soloist. Soloist Paul Kay has retired to become artistic manager for intensive courses and auditions at The Royal Ballet School. Lesley Collier has retired from her position as répétiteur to the principal artists. Senior producer Amanda Skoog has departed to join English National Ballet School as its executive director.

At La Scala Ballet, Alice Mariani has been promoted to principal, Gaia Andreanò and Camilla Cerulli to soloist.

Alexander Yap has joined Hong Kong Ballet as a soloist.

Evan McKie has departed National Ballet of Canada.

Ben Needham-Wood has been named artistic director of Boulder Ballet.

Cesar G. Salinas has been named associate artistic director of Giordano Dance Chicago.

Michelle Preston has been named executive director of the José Limón Dance Foundation, effective November 1.

Elizabeth Van Vleck has been named associate executive director of Bruce Wood Dance.

Sidra Bell has been named the inaugural artist in residence at Gibney. Alexander Anderson and Jie-Hung Connie Shiau have been named Gibney Company choreographic fellows for 2022–23.

Jeff Khan will step down from his position as artistic director and CEO of Australia’s Performance Space at the end of August to become creative director at Asia TOPA. He will continue at Performance Space as artistic associate/creative consultant until October 31. Vanessa Lloyd has been named CEO.

Awards & Honors

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar received the Lillian and Dorothy Gish Prize, which includes a cash award of approximately $250,000.

Alexandria Wailes and Antoine Hunter are among the recipients of the Mellon Foundation’s 2022 Disability Futures Fellowship, which includes a $50,000 unrestricted grant.

At the Venice Biennale, Saburo Teshigawara received the 2022 Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Dance. Rocío Molina received the Silver Lion.

Ballethnic Dance Company and Collage Dance Collective are part of the inaugural cohort of South Arts’ Southern Cultural Treasures initiative.

The 2022 Princess Grace Award winners in the field of dance performance and choreography are Mira Nadon, Abdiel Figueroa Reyes, Omar Román De Jesús, Kameron N. Saunders, Jake Tribus and Maleek Washington. Each will receive a $10,000 unrestricted grant. Eleni Loving and Ashley Simpson received honoraria, which includes a $1,000 unrestricted award. Former recipients Rashaun Mitchell, Zoe Scofield and Robyn Mineko Williams received special projects awards, and Shamel Pitts received a works in progress residency award.

Tra Mi Dinh is the recipient of the 2022 Keir Choreographic Award, which includes a $50,000 prize, for her The__. Jenni Large won the $10,000 Peoples Choice Award for Wet Hard.

Michael Bishop, Myrna Packer and Art Bridgman, Chrybaby Cozie, DNA, Neil Greenberg, Omar Román De Jesús, Michael Manswell, Sonia Olla, Pat Ghizamboule Robinson, Leonardo Sandoval, Dolly Sfeir and David Thomson have received 2022 New York State Council for the Arts/New York Foundation for the Arts Artist Fellowships in the field of choreography. Each receives a $7,000 unrestricted grant.

The post News of Note: What You Might Have Missed in July 2022 appeared first on Dance Magazine.