The 2019 Dance Magazine Awards are here! A tradition dating back to 1954, the Dance Magazine Awards have long celebrated living legends who've made a lasting impact on dance. These days, we go even further with our recently added Chairman's Award for distinctive leaders behind the scenes, and Harkness Promise Awards, a grant for innovative young choreographers.
So who's included among this year's honorees?
What does it mean to be human? Well, many things. But if you were at the Dance Magazine Awards last night, you could argue that to be human is to dance. Speeches about the powerful humanity of our art form were backed up with performances by incredible dancers hailing from everywhere from Hubbard Street Dance Chicago to Miami City Ballet.
Misty Copeland started off the celebration. A self-professed "Dance Magazine connoisseur from the age of 13," she not only spoke about how excited she was to be in a room full of dancers, but also—having just come from Dance Theatre of Harlem's memorial for Arthur Mitchell—what she saw as their duty: "We all in this room hold a responsibility to use this art for good," she said. "Dance unifies, so let's get to work."
That sentiment was repeated throughout the night.
The Dance Magazine Awards are almost here. As we look forward to the celebration on Monday night, we're sharing an excerpt from the program—a letter written by our CEO Frederic Seegal:
The 61st year of the Dance Magazine Awards represents a major step forward. It extends the reach of the awards and now marks the second year of our collaboration with the Harkness Foundation for Dance, thus uniting two iconic organizations.
Firstly, this will be the inaugural presentation of the Harkness Promise Awards, which recognizes new talent at the upswing of their careers. Nurturing emerging artists, especially choreographers, is critical to ensuring dance's role in today's cultural landscape.
Choreographer Ronald K. Brown sees himself as a weaver—of movement, but more importantly, of stories. "When I started my company Evidence 33 years ago, I needed to make a space for what I thought of as evidence—work that tells stories, so that when people saw the work, they would see a reflection or evidence of themselves onstage," says Brown, now 51. "That was my mission, my purpose."
Fast-forward to today: Evidence has become a mainstay in the modern dance world and Brown is now considered a vanguard among choreographers fusing Western contemporary dance with movement from the African diaspora, including popular dance and traditions from West African cultures like Senegalese sabar.
She may not be the first choreographer to claim that movement is her first language, but when Crystal Pite says it, it's no caveat: She's as effective and nuanced a communicator as the writers who often inspire her dances.
Her globally popular Emergence, for instance, was provoked in part by science writer Steven Johnson's hypotheses; The Tempest Replica refracts and reimagines Shakespeare. Recently, her reading list includes essays by fellow Canadian Robert Bringhurst, likewise driven by a ravenous, wide-ranging curiosity.
General director of Spoleto Festival USA since 1995 and, for two decades (1998-2017), the director of the Lincoln Center Festival, Nigel Redden has an internationalist's point of view on the arts—expansive, curious, informed by the cultural wealth that the world has to offer.
He is the son of an American diplomat and grew up moving from place to place—Cyprus, Israel, Canada, Italy—until eventually setting of for Yale to study Art History. After visiting the Spoleto festival in Italy as a young man, and working there while he was still an undergraduate, he very quickly realized what he wanted to: direct festivals. And that's what he has done for most of the last quarter century.
No, she isn't like other artistic directors, and that's not just because she's a woman. Lourdes Lopez, who's led Miami City Ballet since 2012, doesn't want this to be taken the wrong way, but as for her vision? She doesn't really have one.
"I just want good dancers and a good company and good rep and an audience and a theater—let us do what the art form is supposed to be doing," she says. "I don't mean that in a flippant way. It's just how I've always approached it."
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Paul Taylor cultivated many brilliant dancers during his 60-plus-year career, but seldom have any commanded such a place of authority and artistry as Michael Trusnovec. He models what it takes to become a great Taylor dancer: weight of movement, thorough grasp of style, deep concentration, steadfast partnering, complete dedication to the choreography and a nuanced response to the music.
Trusnovec can simultaneously make choreography sexy and enlightened, and he can do it within one phrase of movement. Refusing to be pigeonholed, he has excelled in roles as diverse as the tormented and tormenting preacher in Speaking in Tongues; the lyrical central figure—one of Taylor's own sacred roles—in Aureole; the dogged detective in Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rehearsal); and the corporate devil in Banquet of Vultures.
Today, we are thrilled to announce the honorees of the 2018 Dance Magazine Awards. A tradition dating back to 1954, the Dance Magazine Awards celebrate the living legends who have made a lasting impact on dance. This year's honorees include:
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New York, NY (September 2018) – Misty Copeland will open the 61st annual Dance Magazine Awards. The evening will honor Ronald K. Brown, Lourdes Lopez (presented by Darren Walker), Crystal Pite, and Michael Trusnovec (presented by Patrick Corbin). A special Leadership Award will be presented to Nigel Redden. Since 1954 the Dance Magazine Awards have recognized outstanding men and women whose contributions have left a lasting impact on dance. This year's Awards will take place on Monday, December 3, 2018 at The Ailey Citigroup Theater at 7:30 pm. Tickets start at $50 and can be purchased by emailing dmawards@dancemedia.com.
A new award, The Harkness Promise Award, will shine a light on two emerging young artists for the promise of their artistic work. The inaugural awardees are Raja Feather Kelly and Ephrat "Bounce" Asherie. The Harkness Foundation For Dance received proceeds from last year's Dance Magazine Awards for this grant. The award showcases innovative thinking and how to be an effective artist-citizen who positively impacts dance and the broader community through performance, education, organization and activism. Proceeds from this year's Dance Magazine Awards will be applied to next year's Harkness Promise Awards.
"All of us at Dance Magazine are excited to partner with The Harkness Foundation For Dance for a second year and to benefit these two deserving artists. This year's Dance Magazine Awards has once again chosen a stellar group of honorees and we are thrilled to have Misty Copeland join us. We are confident that the 61st Dance Magazine Awards will be our best yet." – Frederic Seegal, CEO/Chairman Dance Media
The Dance Magazine Awards recognize outstanding men and women whose contributions have left a lasting impact on dance. The tradition dates back to 1954. Celebrate this years awardees at the 2017 Dance Magazine Awards on December 4th at 7:30pm in New York City:
For the first time ever, the proceeds from the awards ceremony will go to The Harkness Foundation for Dance to create a new grant for choreographers in their first decade of our work. It's our way of not only honoring those who have made dance what it is today, but investing in artists who will help shape what it becomes tomorrow.
To purchase tickets, please email dmawards@dancemedia.com or call (212) 979-4872. Performance and post-awards cocktail party tickets are $250. Performance-only tickets are $50. Opportunities to participate at a leadership level of $1,000 are available and include a VIP pre-performance champagne reception.
The 2018 Dance Magazine Awards will take place on December 3 at the Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theater in New York City. Performances and presentations will celebrate this year's honorees, to be announced this September.
The proceeds from the awards ceremony will go to The Harkness Foundation for Dance to fund a grant for choreographers in their first decade of work. It's our way of not only honoring those who have made dance what it is today, but investing in artists who will help shape what it becomes tomorrow.
The Dance Magazine Awards recognize outstanding men and women whose contributions have left a lasting impact on dance. The tradition dates back to 1954. Click here to view all past recipients.
To purchase tickets, email dmawards@dancemedia.com or call (212) 979-4872. Performance and post-awards cocktail party tickets are $250. Performance-only tickets are $50. Opportunities to participate at a leadership level of $1,000 are available and include a VIP pre-performance champagne reception.
Some nights, you head home buzzing with energy. After last night's Dance Magazine Awards, we were dancing with it.
We had the privilege of honoring four legends of our field—Rennie Harris, Marika Molnar, Linda Celeste Sims and Diana Vishneva—in a ceremony that was filled with inspiration and beauty.
Since George Balanchine first asked her to care for his dancers in the 1980s, Marika Molnar has helped heal icons as varied as Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown, Natalia Makarova, Judith Jamison, Twyla Tharp, Chita Rivera and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Some patients call her their guardian angel.
"Marika has always answered all my (sometimes ridiculous) questions with the patience and respect that can only come from a deep love of us patients and what we do," says New York City Ballet principal Ashley Bouder. "Without her help during and after my pregnancy, I would never have been able to come back to the stage at full capacity."
Yes, she's small, but the word "mighty" doesn't even begin to get to the root of Linda Celeste Sims' startling magnetism. She joined Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1996 and now, at 41, it's as if her luminous dancing has entered another realm.
"I don't feel tired," she says. "I don't feel like I hate it. I don't feel like it's redundant. I can express different things. I can see what's happening in a more mature way, and I'm intrigued by this moment."
It's not that she isn't aware of her aging body. "I'm not as quick and as fast as I used to be," Sims says. "It's a challenge, but how can I express movement in a new way?"
It makes sense that Dance Magazine long ago dubbed Rennie (Lorenzo) Harris the "high priest of hip hop." When the often shy, Philadelphia-born choreographer founded his company Rennie Harris Puremovement in 1992, he planted a prodigious seed in the dance world. Then and now, Harris' mission has been to examine, preserve and share the culture of hip hop, decisively away from the commercially exploited view.
Harris remembers that when he started in the '90s, it was rough; a lot of his work was direct, so picketing and policing RHPM shows was the norm. But that time also harkened the birth of his well-thought-out launch of street dance onto the concert stage. There was the politically charged March of the Antmen, the pointed look at brotherhood and neighborhoods in P-Funk, and the tour de force Students of the Asphalt Jungle. His chilling solos, Lorenzo's Oil and Endangered Species, screamed chaos, contradiction and culture. In the 2000s, Rome & Jewels, his first evening-length work, garnered a Bessie Award. Facing Mekka followed, celebrating women of hip hop.
For years, Diana Vishneva seemed to be an exotic creature who landed in New York City: If we held our collective breath long enough, perhaps she wouldn't fly away. But last June, this Russian ballerina did just that after delivering her farewell performance of Onegin with American Ballet Theatre, where she had been a principal since 2005. Her wild passion, her musicality and her ability to hold nothing back made her classical dancing all the more thrilling.
Vishneva got her start at the Vaganova Ballet Academy in St. Petersburg. Seven years later she won the Prix de Lausanne, and in 1995, she joined the Mariinsky Ballet, with whom she gave her first major performances in New York City. In 2001, she began her guest artist career, performing with La Scala Ballet, the Paris Opéra Ballet, Staatsballett Berlin and others over the years.
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Dance Magazine is pleased to announce that the annual Dance Magazine Awards, the most prestigious awards event in dance, will make the Harkness Foundation for Dance the beneficiary of the proceeds from the event, which will be held on Monday, December 4, at the Ailey Citigroup Theater (405 West 55th Street) in Manhattan. The Harkness Foundation for Dance, a leading donor to dance, will in turn designate the proceeds to a newly created award to assist choreographers in their first decade of professional work.
''I am thrilled that we are able, in partnership with the Harkness Foundation, to provide tangible support to the dance community. I could think of no better way to leverage the power of Dance Magazine, now celebrating its 90th anniversary.''—Frederic M. Seegal, owner and CEO, Dance Media Publications, LLC
The Dance Magazine Awards recognize outstanding men and women whose contributions have left a lasting impact on dance. The tradition dates back to 1954. The new Harkness Promise Award seeks to shine a light on the other end of the spectrum, recognizing emerging young artists for the promise of their artistic work, and also for their innovative thinking about how to be an effective artist-citizen who positively impacts dance and the broader community through performance, education, organization, activism or other means. From 1986 to the present, the Harkness Foundation has contributed over $30 million to more than 560 organizations across the industry.
The Harkness Promise Award will include a $5,000 unrestricted grant, up to 40 hours of studio space within the grant year, and ongoing consulting and mentorship with Joan Finkelstein, the foundation's executive director. A performance project may result from this support, but is not a condition of the award. The first recipient(s) will be announced in June 2018.
"The Harkness Foundation for Dance is honored to partner with the dance field's indisputable magazine of record, Dance Magazine. The Foundation is excited about this new initiative, which will extend our ability to support the future of the dance field.'' —Joan Finkelstein, Executive Director, The Harkness Foundation for Dance
The winners of the 60th annual Dance Magazine Awards will be announced in the October 2017 issue of Dance Magazine. To facilitate the success of the awards event and fundraising for the Harkness Promise Award, a gala committee is in formation.
Tickets to the performance and post-awards cocktail party and buffet are $250. Opportunities to participate at a leadership level of $1,000 are available and include a VIP pre-performance champagne reception. Performance-only tickets are $50. To order, email dmawards@dancemedia.com or call 212-979-4872.
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About Dance Magazine:
For 90 years, Dance Magazine has provided insight and practical information, as well as news, interviews and beautiful, original photography. Dance Magazine illuminates the art form on a global scale, often breaking ground with fiercely personal accounts of life as a dancer. Dance Magazine is published by Dance Media Publications, LLC, whose properties also include: Dance Spirit®, Dance Teacher®, Pointe® and Dance Retailer NewsTM, plus associated websites and apps.
About The Harkness Foundation for Dance:
The Harkness Foundation for Dance is a private grant-making foundation dedicated to invigorating and supporting the dance art-form, predominantly in New York City. Since 1959, the Harkness name has been synonymous with dance philanthropy. The Foundation carries forward the lifelong dedication to the dance art form of the great American dance patron Rebekah Harkness. Over many decades, this support has taken the form of funding, rehearsal and theater space, technical assistance, and guidance—an unrivaled legacy that has touched countless dance artists and companies in all dance styles and genres. With a broad focus that spans dance creation, presentation, education, medicine and other vital services to the dance field, from 1986 to the present the Harkness Foundation has contributed over $30 million to more than 560 organizations across the industry. For more information: harknessfoundation.org
What do Fred Astaire, Pina Bausch and Misty Copeland have in common? They are all part of one of the most prestigious groups in dance: the Dance Magazine Award recipients. A tradition that dates back to 1954, the Dance Magazine Awards celebrate the living legends who have made a lasting impact on our field.
Today, we are thrilled to announce the four honorees for 2017:
