The Return of the Bessies: Reaching the Apollo and beyond

The 2011 Bessie Awards; Photo by Christopher Duggan

Before the throngs of crazy people in costumes descended on downtown Manhattan yesterday for Halloween, and before the strange October snow storm that descended on the city this past weekend, there came the Bessies, the New York Dance and Performance Awards, which descended upon us last week.

Taking up (a hopefully permanent) residence at the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem, the Bessies brought together the best and brightest of the New York dance community last night.

Highlights of the evening

  • The Apollo: seriously one of the main draws for attending; amazing just to be inside this historical space
  • Dance Legends: being in the same room with and giving standing ovations to amazing people in the field, namely post-modern marvel Trisha Brown and renowned ballet master Frederic Franklin (also the sweetest 97-year-old man ever)
  • Bebe Neuwirth: though mostly scripted, still a funny and delightful guest host, complete with a fabulously sparkly ensemble
  • Familiar faces: reconnecting with friends and colleagues in the field

Host Bebe Neuwirth; Photo by Christopher Duggan

Trisha Brown, Bebe Neuwirth, and the Apollo – can it really get any better than that? Why yes it can. Last year I talked about the revamping of the Bessie awards, under the new umbrella organization of Dance/NYC and the new leadership of Lucy Sexton. And it seems in just one year there have been significant changes in the event, mostly, I believe, for the better.

The biggest difference and improvement is the expanded scope covered by the awards. Because of a completely new set of categories and multiple nominating committees, it seems the awards are much closer to fully representing the breadth of dance in New York City. From recognizing Alexei Ratmansky’s work with American Ballet Theatre for “Outstanding Production of a work performed in a larger capacity venue,” to “downtown” dance artist Beth Gill for “Outstanding Emerging Choreographer,” and Violeta Galagarza for “Service to the Field” for her work with Spanish Harlem’s Keep Rising to the Top dance company, it was great to see an embrace of dance diversity.

Honoree Trisha Brown; Photo by Christopher Duggan

Even beyond the actual awards, the variety of people gathered and the presenters themselves really showed a new desire to represent all aspects of New York’s rich dance scene – ballet, hip hop, uptown, downtown, straight up dance, not quite dance, and everything in-between. There is still more work to be done, especially as mentioned a need to reach more into the borough communities of the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn. But it seems we are at least headed in the right direction.

Along with these major highlights and developments, last Monday was also just a nice evening of gathering together as a community. For me personally, it was fulfilling to note that I knew more people in the crowd this year than I did at last year’s event. And I think that’s really what it’s all about: coming together with people you know and people you want to know, putting aside the daily struggles of supporting this crazy art form, and donning evening attire to properly celebrate the wondrous gift of dance.

A grand thank you to those that made the Bessies possible and are working passionately to sustain its vibrancy in the future: Dance/NYC, Lucy Sexton, Lane Harwell, Lacey Althouse, the Junior Committee, and the various Bessie committees.

For the full list of honorees, check out the Dance/NYC posting. For more coverage of the evening, read the New York Times article, InfiniteBody post, and Junior Committee blog post. For more from the wonderful photographer, check out Christopher Duggan’s website.

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by Meagan Bruskewicz on November 1, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by Meagan Bruskewicz on November 1, 2011

http://languageofthesoul.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/the-return-of-the-bessies-reaching-the-apollo-and-beyond/

Assessment of American concert dance world: Needs Improvement

I have seen the dance world from multiple perspectives. I have studied dance most of my life and performed, choreographed, and taught dance. I have learned about dance (with a degree to show for it) and read, thought, and written about dance. I have worked in administrative roles for dance education, presenting, and service organizations. I have engaged with Dance/NYC, Dance/USA, the Congress on Research in Dance, the Arts and Business Council, and the Harkness Center for Dance Injuries. I live in New York City where I see dance performances and hobnob with a variety of dance professionals on a regular basis.

And my consensus from observing the dance world from these diverse vantage points is: 1) I love it; I believe in it; I’m not done with it, and 2) It needs a lot of work if it wants to grow and sustain.

I have compiled here a list of problems or areas that I think need improvement in the large context of concert dance in the U.S. I have been thinking about these things for a while, but when I went to actually write down a list, I was surprised that I came up with so many – 20 in total. Because of this, I decided to divide them into categories, so that the full list wouldn’t be as overwhelming. Thus, here is my current list of areas of need for American concert dance

Coming together

  • There is not enough connection and caring among the different sectors of the dance world. I often refer to the 4 A’s and an E: Artists, Administrators, Advocates, Academics, and Educators. I feel that there need to be communication bridges between each of these groups as well as mutual respect and concern for the health of each sector.
  • Specifically, academic researchers and writers tend to be very exclusive. I spoke about this in my review of the Congress on Research in Dance conference last November. I particularly wish that academics were more inclusive of the rest of the field in their studies and also shared their findings with a broader audience, sparking positive change by sharing the knowledge with those it actually affects.
  • Once connecting bridges are established between the different sectors, there needs to be more discourse among people in dance. We need to come together to talk about issues and discuss solutions.
  • I feel dance writers could play a critical role in helping this discourse to happen – using media platforms to bring up topics and engage conversation (not just providing dance criticism). In order to do this, though, we need more opportunities, support, and compensation for dance writers.
  • To fully bring everyone to the table and working together to promote change, we may need to improve our current service organizations and possibly create new ones. For example, I think the Dance Critics Association and Dance/USA could benefit from clarified missions and rejuvenated energy. And with so many separate organizations for each professional group (though each useful), is there need for a national umbrella organization for all things dance, to at least bring representatives from each community together for cross-conversation?

Read the full post »

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by Meagan Bruskewicz on October 24, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by Meagan Bruskewicz on October 24, 2011

http://languageofthesoul.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/assessment-of-american-concert-dance-world-needs-improvement/

Dance on YouTube: Final round-up of OK Go

I know I haven’t written a regular post in a while, but I felt the need to wrap up my little series on Ok Go dance videos before moving on.

After I covered two of the band’s infamous dance-infused music videos, A Million Ways and Here It Goes Again, OK Go released the most creative and dance-embracing video of them all – a collaboration with Pilobolus Dance Theatre. If you didn’t hear about this or see the video, now’s your chance. You can read more about it from the New York Times and Ok Go’s blog and check out the official Times debut and slide show. But basically the two performing groups came together with blue unitards and a camera situated beneath a glass floor to create a visually stimulating music video for the song All Is Not Lost. Here is the basic version of it on YouTube:

 

But it gets way cooler. By teaming up with the crazy folks from Google, they created an interactive version of the video only available on Google Chrome. It does require that you download (the free) Google Chrome, but I’m telling you it’s totally worth it. Not only is the video itself much cooler, but you can actually customize the video by typing in your own word or phrase, which then gets spelled out in the last part of the music video. You can even download a special screenshot of your phrase to keep for posterity, like this:

So before I say any more, go, download Chrome, go to www.allisnotlo.st, and enjoy the magic.

dum-dee-dum-dum …………..

Are you back now? Pretty cool, right? Now, if you still don’t love this band as much as I do, I have one last video to show (well, at least until their next dancing extravaganza). This one is not really a dance video, but still totally fun. Apparently OK Go was summoned recently to do a version of The Muppet Show theme song, complete, of course, with a music video with the Muppets. With references to a bunch of the band’s well-known videos and your favorite Muppets characters, the end result is pretty great. Check out the video below and also a fun behind-the-scenes video .

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by Meagan Bruskewicz on October 21, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by Meagan Bruskewicz on October 21, 2011

http://languageofthesoul.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/dance-on-youtube-final-round-up-of-ok-go/

Dance on YouTube: 5-year anniversary of the treadmill dance

Happy anniversary!! That’s right: 5 years ago this month the band OK Go released their huge hit music video for the song Here It Goes Again. And if you were somehow hibernating at that time and missed out on the hullaballoo, it is literally a choreographed routine with treadmills performed by the band members. And it is brilliant.

My first post highlighting online dance videos featured OK Go’s first ever zany dance music video, A Million Ways – the silly backyard dance that started it all. One year later, OK Go majorly upped the ante with Here It Goes Again. In just 6 days, over one million people had watched the video. One million! Which is even more impressive when you consider this was back in 2006, when YouTube was still young and before we even knew what Twitter was. To date, the video has accrued over 50 million views. It also received the 2007 Grammy award for Best Short Form Music Video as well as the 2006 YouTube award for Most Creative Video.

Personally, I loved the video from the first time I saw it, blown away by the musicality, precision, and creative use of treadmills. But I also remember it fondly because it was used by a college professor of mine for our Dance History final exam. She played the video for us then gave us a prompt to write about, which I believe  had something to do with discussing dance in pop culture. I also believe I was quite impressed that my professor was so in-tune to current technological trends. In any case, I want to send a special shout out to my professor as well as, of course, the members of OK Go and the choreographer for both routines, Trish Sie (the lead singer’s sister). And I would be remiss to not also alert your attention to the stellar song that the treadmill dance is done to, advising you to check out the band’s website for even more stellar songs.

Lastly, although it’s not a dance video really, you should also check out OK Go’s video for This Too Shall Pass, the Rube Goldberg Machine version (as shown below). It’s impressive in a completely different, high-level engineering sort of way. Just insane:

Update: check out my third and follow-up post on OK Go dance videos here

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by Meagan Bruskewicz on July 5, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Pop culture, YouTube
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Posted by Meagan Bruskewicz on July 5, 2011

http://languageofthesoul.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/dance-on-youtube-ok-go-round-2/

What happens when dance and theater nerds join forces

This entire blog post goes under the heading “better late than never.” That’s because I’m finally getting around to writing about the Congress on Research in Dance (CORD) conference that I went to last November in Seattle. Yep, that’s right, over 7 months ago. But it’s all good, because I took copious notes. So here goes.

Straight to it: the conference was great. There were many informative presentations of quality research done by individuals in the academic sector. Since it was a joint conference of CORD and the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR), we got to hear about topics relating to both fields – dance and theater – and also about points of intersection between them. To be honest, not all of them were interesting (to me) and sometimes the combination of monotone speakers, fluorescent lighting, and lack of sleep caused me to doze off from time to time. But most of the presentations were well-done and quite relevant, such as discussing documentation strategies for the performing arts and exploring identity in contemporary modern dance.

I also really appreciated the State of the Profession plenary – a panel of academics from mixed backgrounds and interests sharing their views about the present and future of their respective fields. It was great to hear what seasoned scholars considered to be the current issues as well as their opinions on how to move forward. One idea I found particularly interesting came from Praise Zenenga, professor at The University of Arizona, who expressed his desire to unlock the power of the human body, as he believes the “body is a site of interdisciplinary inquiry.” (Such a nerdy arts phrase, but I guess that’s why I like it.)

I was really glad that CORD took a page from the ASTR playbook and welcomed “working sessions” into the mix, Read the full post »

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by Meagan Bruskewicz on June 29, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by Meagan Bruskewicz on June 29, 2011

http://languageofthesoul.wordpress.com/2011/06/29/what-happens-when-dance-and-theater-nerds-join-forces/

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