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.

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?

 Identity

• I’m currently working on another writing piece about what we name modern dance. “Modern dance” as a term actually has multiple meanings and is therefore inadequate to describe the form of concert dance done by many in our country. We need to figure out what we’re doing – “Modern”? “Contemporary”? “Live art”? Something else? – so that we’re all on the same page and can effectively talk about ourselves, where we’re going and where we’ve been.
• Concert dance in America also needs a better national identity. Not only does this include how our dance is unique from other countries, but it also means we need to be aware and supportive of the various dance happening in different cities around the United States.

Bettering ourselves

• There needs to be stronger and more uniform training of artists. All college dance programs need to meet certain standards, so we are developing well-informed, well-rounded, and self-aware artists. Beyond college, there need to be more mentorship opportunities for young people and more platforms for emerging choreographers to create and show work. No artist in any form is brilliant right from the start; to achieve brilliance, you need to be able to experiment and even fail many, many times.
• Hopefully, then, this improved education and training will lead to better art. It’s not that there isn’t great artistic dance happening now, but I want even more. I want more art that is interesting and illuminating and provocative and impactful. And I want it to be accessible to a broader audience, while still maintaining a high level of artistic integrity. And I want lots of it, enough to share across the country. Not too much to ask, right?
• Anyone that knows of Michael Kaiser, of the Kennedy Center and DeVos Institute of Arts Management, knows that one of his major agendas is to increase the amount and level of training for arts administration professionals in the country. While I may not agree with all of his opinions on arts management, I certainly agree that better training is needed, especially to prepare the next generation of arts leaders. In the same way, there needs to be strong training programs for every professional sector of dance, whether an administrator, advocate, teacher, etc.
• This may be just a personal desire, as I hope to pursue a graduate degree in Dance Studies in the future, but I feel specifically that there need to be more Masters and PhD programs related to studying and improving the field of dance, rather than just studying or practicing the art form itself. From my searching, I found only one actual “Dance Studies” program in the country, though many MFA and Performance Studies programs.
• Lastly, I wish everyone in dance were more aware and embracing of their own worth and place in the dance world as well as the world at large. It’s important that we remind ourselves from time to time of the important role that we play in our society and find new passion for doing our best at fulfilling that role.

Outreach and education

• We all want more support for dance – we mourn the loss of government and private funding; we wish more people came to shows; we want higher paychecks. But in order to get more support for dance, we need to make outreach a major priority. Our art form will not continue to exist, let alone thrive, if we don’t get more people interested in dance and aware of its artistic value.
• A big part of getting people to appreciate dance is to increase education about the art form. To this end, I think we need to hit them early and provide more dance education to children (inside and outside schools), so that Americans learn at an early age to be comfortable with their bodies and recognize the potential for expression through movement. Thankfully there are already many hard-working individuals and many influential education programs across the country, but with our political climate and decreased government support for arts education, this important task is actually very difficult to achieve. Which is why we need to dedicate major efforts to promoting existing programs and building new ones, as teaching children is the key to building dance audiences for years to come.
• Only slightly less important than educating the audiences of tomorrow is educating those of today. We need to have more outreach to non-dance people in our society, educating the masses to de-mystify the form and make it more accessible and enjoyable. I can act as a private tutor to my family and friends, but what about everyone else that we can’t individually reach?

Addressing current issues

• Not enough dance outside of New York: Maybe New York City will never lose its monopoly on modern dance in our country, and maybe that’s okay. (It started here; it deserves to be strong here.) But there also needs to be a proliferation of dance across the country, so that everyone can see and benefit from the form, not just those in New York or select other large cities. How about in the very least creating a resident modern dance company in every city that has a ballet company?
• Better use of technology: Now, technology can be used for so many things, but particularly I would love to use it to address the first issue, bringing dance to more people. Like Tendu TV is trying to do, make dance pieces available for online download, and like The Met Opera has done with live broadcasts to theaters around the country, how can we use technology to make great dance available no matter where you live?
• The potency of pop culture influences, like reality TV shows, and the influence of the separate world of commercial dance: Not that these are entirely bad, but how do we take advantage of benefits and counteract the disadvantages? (For more on my specific opinions on So You Think You Can Dance, read the bad, the good, and the big picture.)

Renewing spirits

• Beyond these various tasks and foci to address within the field, a big part of moving forward is preparing mentally. And I think the first part of this is remembering to have fun. Clearly there are a lot of heavy issues that we need to face, but we also need to remember the joy we find in dance. We need to reinvigorate our passions and encourage each other as a family, a family united in love for this great art form.
• Ruth St. Denis performed Radha at Coney Island in 1906; Isadora Duncan returned to the U.S. after success in Europe in 1908; and the Denishawn school was founded in California in 1915 (Ballet and Modern Dance). Fokine moved to New York in 1919, started his ballet school in 1921, and had first performances with the “American Ballet” company in 1924 (Fokine website). Graham’s first season with her company was in New York in 1926 (International Dictionary of Modern Dance). Congratulations on 100 years of artistic dance in the United States! Let’s feel good about our accomplishments, then recommit to improving dance and making it a viable art form in the U.S. for many years to come.

So there you go, my mini manifesto on the needs I see in American concert dance. To be fair, many of these areas are already being focused on by amazingly dedicated individuals and organizations across the country. But my point is that in these ways, we still have a long way to go; and we need to come together to make these efforts a priority, for the greater good of the form.

And so my final note is to those who identify themselves as somehow within the field of dance. Which of these or similar areas of need are you going to dedicate yourself to? Concert dance is still so new in our country, so it’s only natural that there are still many aspects that need improvement. But let’s make it happen. Let’s make this art form as great as it can be and fill as many souls with it as we possibly can. Let’s take up our own responsibilities and also work together to push the form forward and build a foundation for dance in the United States.

Please feel free to comment, as I would love to hear what others think about this list and what possibly needs to be added.

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 .

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

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, which were small groups focused on specific topics of discussion and self-led by volunteering individuals from the field. I actually had the privilege of joining and contributing to one of these working groups. Entitled Nursing a Beautiful Bastard, my group explored the mixed forms of theater and dance in theory and in practice. (To check out some of our conversation and our truncated “manifesto” formed through our meeting at the conference, you can read the group blog here.) Since the working sessions were open to all attendees, though, I was also able to listen in on and enjoy other discussions, namely one on dramaturgy and one on intersecting bodies in performance. I think some really great things came out of these groups, out of the blending of brains and the creative potential of joining artistic forces.

Of course one’s experience of a conference is also greatly shaped by what one makes of it. Looking back, I feel I did a fair job of taking advantage of the people gathered and the opportunities for discussion. I remember a wonderful sharing (over drinks, of course) of two art makers and their thoughts about critics (as colorful as you would imagine). I also was able to speak with many grad students, gaining helpful advice for my own grad school plans.

Very cool sidewalk art of partner dance steps

Along with the conference itself, my time in Seattle was vastly enriched by my living arrangements. For mostly economic reasons, I stayed with a friend of mine instead of in the hotel, which meant a slightly longer commute to the conference each morning but an overwhelmingly broader experience of Seattle and its arts scene. (Thank you, Rachel! Please hit up New York anytime so I can return the favor.) Of course we hit the tourist spots, like the Space Needle and the Pike Place Market, but we also went to a rather interesting dance installation piece housed in an old school. I also saw a performance at On the Boards, seemingly Seattle’s version of Dance Theater Workshop (DTW) with more wood furnishings. A real highlight, though, was watching a rehearsal of my host, which was held in a studio built in the choreographer’s backyard. That’s right, New Yorker’s, a backyard (which also happened to have a personal dance studio in it).

On a final note, I’d like to point out some things that were not so great about the conference. First, there really was very little time in between panels and events for much informal mingling and networking. And if you’ve ever been to a conference, you know that a huge takeaway is often these informal connections made with colleagues – sometimes more important than the official conference agenda as they can lead to future professional relations and projects. But with a jam-packed schedule and not even lunch or coffee breaks, these conversations were hard to come by. The pinnacle example of this was having the CORD award ceremony during a catered lunch, literally trying to listen to someone’s acceptance speech while telling the waitress no, I did not want any coffee.

Secondly, while sharing ideas with others in the field is important, at times it can feel quite insular, in that perhaps there is more we should be doing than just talking to each other. I would have liked more of the presentations to conclude with thoughts about the effects of the particular research on the field at large and maybe next steps for using the information to produce change. Often some interesting questions were brought up in the question and answer portions, but with very little time for open discussion, these ideas just floated in the air. As I said, while supporting fellow scholars is hugely important for growing as a community, I would love to see more progressive, meaty discussion about how to use the research to address issues in the field – really taking advantage of gathering so many brilliant people in the same space.

Me and the Pacific Coast

Finally, Seattle… what can I say? We had some good times. But I think between the snow in November, the less-than-thorough bus service (especially in the snow), and nothing open in the city on Sundays, you’re just not my cup of tea. A lovely city with exciting things, for sure, but I think I’ll stay away from settling on your northwestern shores. Until next time, Seattle, I bid you adieu.

And to CORD, I thank you for another wonderful, educational experience as only a dance nerd like myself can really appreciate. I look forward to many more years of engagement and learning.