The New York Dance and Performance Awards, also known as the Bessie Awards, are awarded annually for exceptional achievement by independent dance artists presenting their work in New York City. The broad categories of the awards are: choreography, performance, music composition and visual design. The Bessie Awards were established in 1983.

History and description

The Bessie Awards were established in 1983 by

Dance Theater Workshop Dance Theater Workshop, colloquially known as DTW, was a New York City performance space and service organization for dance companies that operated from 1965 to 2011. After a merger it became known as New York Live Arts Located as 219 19th Street ...

and named in honor of

Bessie Schonberg Bessie Schonberg (December 27, 1906 – May 14, 1997) was a highly influential dancer, choreographer and teacher of the 20th century. She was at the center of contemporary modern dance from her beginning at Bennington College up until her dea ...

, an influential mid-20th-century teacher of modern dance and former head of the dance department at

Sarah Lawrence College Sarah Lawrence College is a Private university, private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York. The college models its approach to education after the Supervision system, Oxford/Cambridge system of one-on-one student-faculty tutorials. Sara ...

. The awards honor exceptional choreography, performance, music composition and visual design in dance and allied art forms. Nominees and award winners are chosen by the Bessie Selection Committee, which consists of dancers, dance presenters, producers, choreographers, journalists, critics and academics. Since 2010, the awards have been overseen by an independent steering committee in partnership with Dance/NYC and administered by Lucy Sexton. In their current iteration, the awards encompass a broader range of dance genres and supporting art forms than in the past, and offer an annual commission to an emerging artist.

Recipients

Over 400 Bessie Awards have been presented since their founding. Notable recipients include:

Choreographer Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which motion or form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who cr ...

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Arthur Aviles Arthur Avilés (born 1963) is an American Bessie Award-winning dancer and choreographer of Puerto Rican descent. Avilés was born in Queens, New York, and raised in Long Island and the Bronx. He graduated from Bard College, a liberal arts coll ...

* Jérôme Bel *

Beverly Schmidt Blossom Beverly Schmidt Blossom (August 28, 1926 – November 1, 2014) was an American modern dancer, choreographer, and teacher. She was an original member and soloist with the Alwin Nikolais Dance Theater, a modern dance choreographer for Illinois Danc ...

Camille A. Brown Camille A. Brown is a dancer, choreographer, director and dance educator. She is the Founder & Artistic Director of Camille A. Brown & Dancers, and has congruently choreographed commissioned pieces for dance companies, Broadway shows, and unive ...

Trisha Brown Trisha Brown (November 25, 1936 – March 18, 2017) was an American choreographer and dancer, and one of the founders of the Judson Dance Theater and the postmodern dance movement. Brown’s dance/movement method, with which she and her dancers ...

Donald Byrd Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture Byrd II (December 9, 1932 – February 4, 2013) was an American jazz and rhythm & blues trumpeter and vocalist. A sideman for many other jazz musicians of his generation, Byrd was one of the few hard bop m ...

* Ann Carlson * Ping Chong *

Yoshiko Chuma is a dancer, a choreographer and the director of the Bessie Award winning performance art group The School of Hard Knocks. Kriegsman, Alan M. (October 11, 1987The week of giant steps''The Washington Post''. Retrieved 2008-08-05. Described in 2007 ...

* Leslie Cuyjet *

Garth Fagan Gawain Garth Fagan, CD (born 3 May 1940) is a Jamaican modern dance choreographer. He is the founder and artistic director of Garth Fagan Dance, a modern dance company based in Rochester, New York. Biography Early years Fagan was born in K ...

Molissa Fenley Molissa Fenley (born 15 November 1954) is an American choreographer, performer and teacher of contemporary dance. Early life and education Molissa Fenley (née Avril Molissa Fenley) was born in Las Vegas, Nevada on November 15, 1954. She is the yo ...

* William Forsythe * Beth Gill *

Guillermo Gómez-Peña Guillermo Gómez-Peña is a Mexican/Chicano performance artist, writer, activist, and educator. Gómez-Peña has created work in multiple media, including performance art, experimental radio, video, photography and installation art. His fifteen b ...

* David Gordon *

Bill Irwin William Mills Irwin (born April 11, 1950) is an American actor, clown, and comedian. He began as a vaudeville-style stage performer and has been noted for his contribution to the renaissance of American circus during the 1970s. He has made a n ...

* Bill T. Jones *

Lisa Jones Lisa Victoria Chapman Jones (born August 15, 1961)Ellis, Trey (1988). ''Platitudes & "The new black aesthetic"''. Northeastern University Press, Ann Arbor. is an American playwright, essayist, journalist, and memoirist. Personal life and educa ...

Carl Hancock Rux Carl Hancock Rux () is an American poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, recording artist, journalist, curator and conceptual installation artist working in text, dance, ritualized performance, audio, video, and photography. Described in the NY T ...

Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker Anne Teresa, Baroness De Keersmaeker (, born 1960 in Mechelen, Belgium, grew up in Wemmel) is a contemporary dance choreographer. The dance company constructed around her, , was in residence at La Monnaie in Brussels from 1992 to 2007. Biography ...

Alonzo King Alonzo King, born in Georgia to civil-rights activists Slater King and Valencia King Nelson, is an American dancer and choreographer based in San Francisco. King grew up in Georgia and California, and, as an adult, decided his contribution w ...

Stephan Koplowitz Stephan Koplowitz is a director and choreographer and media artist specializing in site-specific multimedia performances. Since the 1980s, Koplowitz, an international site artist and former Dean of Dance at CalArts, has dedicated himself to site ...

Édouard Lock Édouard Lock (born March 3, 1954 in Morocco) is a Canadian dance choreographer and the founder of the Canadian dance group, La La La Human Steps. Career La La La Human Steps Founder, Artistic Director and Choreographer Édouard Lock began hi ...

Meredith Monk Meredith Jane Monk (born November 20, 1942) is an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. From the 1960s onwards, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance, recording ...

* Mark Morris *

Tere O'Connor Tere O'Connor (born 1958) is an American dancer, choreographer and educator. Life and career Tere O'Connor was born in Rochester, New York, and graduated in 1979 with a B.A. from State University of New York at Purchase. He performed in the comp ...

Stephen Petronio Stephen Petronio (born March 20, 1956) is an American choreographer, dancer, and the artistic director of New York City-based Stephen Petronio Company. Stephen Petronio was born in Newark, New Jersey. He grew up in nearby Nutley and graduated in ...

Inbal Pinto Inbal Pinto (born 1969) (Hebrew: ענבל פינטו) is an Israeli contemporary dancer, choreographer, set and costume designer. She is the artistic director of the Inbal Pinto Dance Company. . In 1992 Pinto founded the Inbal Pinto Dance Comp ...

* Joya Powell *

Angelin Preljocaj Angelin Preljocaj (; born 19 January 1957) is a French dancer and choreographer of contemporary dance. Early life Angelin Preljocaj was born in 1957 in Sucy-en-Brie, France. He is of Albanian descent. Career His choreographic work is steeped ...

* David Roussève * Pam Tanowitz *

Saburo Teshigawara is a Japanese choreographer and dancer who was born in Tokyo and became known for founding a company named KARAS along with Kei Miyata in 1985. On September 12, 2013, he performed ''Mirror and Music'' at the Kennedy Center which was highly prais ...

* Muna Tseng *

Doug Varone Doug Varone is an American choreographer and director. He works in dance, theater, opera, film and fashion. He is an educator and advocate for dance. His company, Doug Varone and Dancers, has been performing for over three decades. Education Var ...

* Johanna Boyce *

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar Jawole Willa Jo Zollar (born December 21, 1950) is an United States, American dancer, teacher and choreographer of modern dance. She is the founder of the Urban Bush Women dance company. Biography One of six children, she was born Willa Jo Zollar ...

* Robert Wilson * Christopher Williams * Mariana Valencia * Wim Vandekeybus Composers *David Byrne (musician), David Byrne * James Baker (composer), James Baker * Anthony Davis (composer), Anthony Davis * Peter Laurence Gordon * Julius Hemphill * Lenny Pickett * Dan Siegler * Hahn Rowe * David Van Tieghem Designers *Charles Atlas * Powers Boothe * Kyle Chepulis * Beverly Emmons * David Ferri * Kathryn Kaufmann * Peter Ksander * Mark Lancaster * Susanne Poulin * Stan Pressner * Philip Sandström * Howard S. Thies * Jennifer Tipton * Philip Trevino An archive of past recipients is available at the Bessies web site.

References

{{Reflist

External links

The Bessie Awards Web site
Dance awards Dance in the United States Dance in New York City Bessie Award winners, Awards established in 1983 1983 establishments in New York City