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 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 Lucy Sexton is a performer, director and choreographer who performs as Factress and is one half of Dancenoise. She is a Bessie Award winner, and later served as the organization's executive director before stepping down in 2020. As of 2014, she was ...

. 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 ...

s * Arthur Aviles *

Jérôme Bel Jérôme Bel (born 1965) is a French dancer and choreographer. Biography Bel discovered contemporary dance at the 1983 Festival d'Avignon, where he saw two important pieces, ''Nelken'' by Pina Bausch and '' Rosas danst Rosas'' by Anne Teresa De K ...

* Beverly Schmidt Blossom * Camille A. Brown * Trisha Brown *

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 Ping may refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional characters * Ping, a domesticated Chinese duck in the illustrated book '' The Story about Ping'', first published in 1933 * Ping, a minor character in ''Seinfeld'', an NBC sitcom * Ping, a c ...

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 Kin ...

* Molissa Fenley * William Forsythe * Beth Gill * Guillermo Gómez-Peña * 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 William Tass Jones, known as Bill T. Jones, (born February 15, 1952) is an American choreographer, director, author and dancer. He is the co-founder of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. Jones is Artistic Director of New York Live Ar ...

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 * Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker * Alonzo King * Stephan Koplowitz * Édouard Lock * Meredith Monk * Mark Morris * Tere O'Connor *

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 *

Joya Powell Joya Powell (born January 15, 1979, in Manhattan), also known as Joya Powell-Goldstein, is a Bessie Award-winning choreographer, educator, and activist. As the founding artistic director of Movement of the People Dance Company, she is known for cre ...

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 David Roussève is an American choreographer, writer, director and filmmaker. He founded his company, David Roussève/REALITY in 1988 and has since choreographed, written and directed 14 evening-length works for the group. His latest work for REALIT ...

Pam Tanowitz Pam Tanowitz (born 1969) is an American dancer, choreographer, professor, and founder of the company, Pam Tanowitz Dance. She is a current staff member at Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts where she teaches dance and choreography. ...

* Saburo Teshigawara *

Muna Tseng Muna Tseng is a Chinese-American dancer, choreographer, author and lecturer. She has lived in New York since 1978 and in 1984 founded Muna Tseng Dance Projects in New York City. She created over 40 dance productions and performed in over 30 cities ...

* Doug Varone * Johanna Boyce * Jawole Willa Jo Zollar * Robert Wilson * Christopher Williams *

Mariana Valencia Mariana Valencia (born 1984) is an American contemporary multidisciplinary artist. She was honoured as the "Outstanding Breakout Choreographer" at the 2018 Bessie Awards. Early life Valencia is of Guatemalan descent, and was born and raised in ...

* Wim Vandekeybus

Composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

s *

David Byrne David Byrne (; born 14 May 1952) is a Scottish-American singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, writer, music theorist, visual artist and filmmaker. He was a founding member and the principal songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist of ...

* James Baker *

Anthony Davis Anthony Marshon Davis Jr. (born March 11, 1993) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He plays the power forward and center positions. Davis is an eight-time NB ...

Peter Laurence Gordon Peter Gordon (born June 20, 1951, New York City) is an American saxophonist, clarinetist, pianist and experimental composer, whose influences include jazz, disco, funk, rock, opera, classical and world music. He has released several albums a ...

Julius Hemphill Julius Arthur Hemphill (January 24, 1938 – April 2, 1995) was a jazz composer and saxophone player. He performed mainly on alto saxophone, less often on soprano and tenor saxophones and flute. Biography Hemphill was born in Fort Worth, Texas, ...

* Lenny Pickett *

Dan Siegler Dan Siegler is an American composer and sound artist from New York City. During his career, Siegler has ventured into a number of mediums, including dance, live theater, and television. Siegler is a recipient of the Bessie Awards for his work wit ...

* Hahn Rowe * David Van Tieghem Designers *

Charles Atlas Charles Atlas (born Angelo Siciliano; October 30, 1892 – December 24, 1972) was an Italian-born American bodybuilder best remembered as the developer of a bodybuilding method and its associated exercise program which spawned a landmark advert ...

* 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 Awards established in 1983 1983 establishments in New York City