The Joyce Theater Foundation

in association with

The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago

Philadelphia Live Arts Festival

and

On the Boards (Seattle)

Announces 48 Participants in

The A.W.A.R.D. Show! 2009

Artists With Audiences Responding to Dance

Twelve Choreographers Selected to Participate in Each City: New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia and Seattle

The Joyce Theater Foundation, in association with The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and On the Boards (Seattle), is pleased to announce the 12 choreographers in each of the four cities who will participate in The A.W.A.R.D Show! 2009.  The 48 participants were selected from a total of 218 applicants from across the country; one from each city will take home a $10,000 award to use toward the creation of a new dance work. 

A national panel of distinguished dance experts evaluated the applications for The A.W.A.R.D. Show! series taking place in Chicago, Philadelphia and Seattle.  The panelists included Martin Wechsler, Director of Programming of The Joyce Theater 

Foundation; Phil Reynolds, Executive Director of the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago; Nick Stuccio, Producing Director of the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival; and Lane Czaplinski, Artistic Director of On the Boards.  Each applicant was evaluated according to the P.O.E.M. criteria: Potential,Originality, Execution and Merit. 

The applicants for The A.W.A.R.D. Show! series taking place in New York City at Joyce SoHo were also evaluated according to the P.O.E.M. criteria by a group of thirteen panelists that included dance artists, arts administrators and dance enthusiasts.

The 12 participants in each city are:

New York City

• Vanessa Justice—Vanessa Justice Dance
• Sidra Bell—Sidra Bell Dance New York
• Shannon Gillen & Elisabeth Motley—DOORKNOB COMPANY
• Andrea Miller—Gallim Dance
• Makiko Tamura—small apple co.
• Isabel Gotzkowsky—Isabel Gotzkowsky and Friends
• Anthony Whitehurst
• Vershawn Sanders—Red Clay Dance Company
• Ximena Garnica—Garnica LEIMAY
• Monica Bill Barnes—Monica Bill Barnes & Company
• Emery LeCrone
• Tami Stronach—Tami Stronach Dance 

Chicago

• Francisco Aviña
• Rachel Bunting—The Humans
• Archana Kumar
• Julia Rhoads—Lucky Plush Productions
• Lisa Gonzales and Darrell Jones
• Lizzie MacKenzie—NoMi LaMad Dance Company
• Enid Smith—Enid Smith Dance
• Jessica Miller Tomlinson
• Allyson Esposito and Megan Schneeberger—The Space/Movement Project
• Carrie Hanson—The Seldoms
• Molly Shanahan—Molly Shanahan/Mad Shak
• Joel Valentin-Martinez

 Philadelphia

• Nichole Canuso—Nichole Canuso Dance Company
• Devynn Emory—Devynn Emory/Beast Productions
• Kirsten Kaschock
• Braham Logan Crane
• Megan Mazarick
• Jen McGinn
• Jumatatu Poe—Idiosyncrazy Productions
• Gabrielle Revlock
• Jenn Rose
• Zornitsa Stoyanova—Here[begin] Dance Co.
• Kathryn TeBordo—Workshop for Potential Movement
• Kate Watson-Wallace—anonymous bodies

Seattle

• Catherine Cabeen
• Sonia Dawkins—SD Prism Dance Theatre
• Lauren Edson
• Hannah Lagerway—Coriolis Dance Collective
• Ricki Mason—LAUNCH dance theater
• Shannon Mockli
• KT Niehoff—Lingo
• Amelia Reeber
• Molly Scott—Scott/Powell Performance
• Olivier Wevers—Whim W’Him
• Daniel Wilkins—DASSdance
• Deborah Wolf

Each series of The A.W.A.R.D. Show! will present the work of the 12 promising contemporary choreographers selected over four nights of performances.  Three preliminary evenings will feature the work of four choreographers per night.  Each dance piece will be 15 minutes or less of a completed work, excerpt or work-in-progress.  After each performance, a moderated artist and audience discussion will take place, followed by an audience vote to select a finalist to perform again on the fourth and final night of the series.  Each night the audience and the artists will be invited to a post-performance reception where further informal dialogue about the work is encouraged.  On the final night, a panel of experts in dance and other cultural arts fields, along with the audience, will choose the winner of the award in that city. 

The first place winners in each of the four participating cities will receive $10,000 cash awards.  The two runners-up in each city will receive $1,000.  These awards are to be used toward the creation of new dance work.  Awards in Chicago, Philadelphia and Seattle have been generously underwritten by The Boeing Company.  The awards in New York City have been generously underwritten by Scott Kasan.

The A.W.A.R.D. Show! 2009 Schedule of Events:

1) Joyce SoHo (New York City):

            Performances June 18–21, 2009 at 7pm

            155 Mercer Street, New York, NY

            Performance Tickets: $15

Ovation Tickets: 212-352-3101 or visit joyce.org

Tickets available May 15, 2009

2) The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago:

Performances June 24–27, 2009 at 8pm

1306 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL

Performance Tickets: $15                                                

Columbia Ticket Center: 312-369-6600 or visitcolum.edu/dancecenter

Tickets available May 18, 2009

3) Philadelphia Live Arts Festival:

Performances September 15–17 and 19, 2009 at 8pm

Arts Bank at the University of the Arts

601 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA

Preliminary Performance Tickets: $25; Final Performance Tickets: $30

Discounts available for multiple ticket buyers

Advance tickets available May 2009: livearts-fringe.org or call 215-413-1318

4) On 

the Boards (Seattle):

Performances December 10–13, 2009 at 8pm

Behnke Center for Contemporary Performance

100 W. Roy Street, Seattle, WA

Performance Tickets: $12

On the Boards Box Office: 206-217-9888 or visitontheboards.org

The four first-place winners and the eight runners-up of The A.W.A.R.D. Show! 2009 will report back on their progress in creating new work with the prize money that they receive, and when performances of the work are scheduled, they will be advertised on The Joyce Theater website and on each company’s website as well. In this way, the audience will have a chance to attend a performance and see a dance work that they ultimately helped to fund.

The A.W.A.R.D. Show! was created in response to a need for a lab-like space in which working dance artists can engage in an open dialogue with the audience about their work.

The A.W.A.R.D. Show! 2009 is administered by The Joyce Theater Foundation.

The A.W.A.R.D. Show! was founded in 2006 by Neta Pulvermacher/Neta Dance Company with original co-production by Marisa König Beatty.

Organizational Information

The Joyce Theater Foundation, a non-profit organization, has proudly served the dance community and its audiences since 

1982.  The founders, Cora Cahan and Eliot Feld, acquired and renovated the Elgin Theater in Chelsea, which opened as The Joyce Theater in 1982. The Joyce is named in honor of Joyce Mertz, beloved daughter of LuEsther T. Mertz.  It was LuEsther’s clear, undaunted vision and abundant generosity that made it imaginable and ultimately possible to establish the theater.  One of the only theaters built by dancers for dance, The Joyce Theater has provided an intimate and elegant New York home for more than 290 domestic and international companies.  The Joyce has also commissioned more than 130 new dances since 1992.  In 1996, The Joyce created Joyce SoHo, a dance center providing highly subsidized rehearsal and performance space to hundreds of dance artists.  The Joyce Theater now features an annual season of approximately 48 weeks with over 340 performances for

audiences in excess of 135,000.  Additionally, for the last five years The Joyce has co-produced Evening Stars as part of the River To River Festival in Battery Park.

The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago was established in 1969 to house Columbia College Chicago’s Dance Department.  Early in its history, all the diverse elements of the art were developed within The Dance Center’s program.  As a complete learning center for dance, it offers a full range of activities designed to enhance and expand the quantity and quality of dance available in Chicago and the Midwest. 

The Dance Center is Chicago’s leading presenter of contemporary dance.  Its presenting series, established in 1974, provides Chicago audiences with opportunities to experience the diversity of contemporary dance in professional settings. 

The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival is an annual 16-day performing arts Festival now in its 13th year.  The Live Arts Festival features curated local, national and international experimental and contemporary performing arts events.  It also plays host to the Philly Fringe, a platform which provides the opportunity for artists from any discipline, independent of a selection process, to self-produce their work.  Each year, hundreds of performances take place in diverse venues: traditional theaters, private homes, warehouses and moving vehicles.  The Festival maintains a commitment to Philadelphia-based artists, regularly presenting world premieres from local artists such as Headlong Dance Theater and Pig Iron Theatre Company.

The Festival has also grown into a leading presenter of contemporary international performance.  In the past six years, the Live Arts Festival has presented work from 40 internationally-based artists, including The show must go on(Jérôme Bel, France, 2008), The Convent, 2006 and The European Lesson, 2008 (Jo Strømgren, Norway); Drought and Rain Vol. 2 (Ea Sola, Vietnam, 2007), and HELL (Emio Greco | PC, Spain/The Netherlands, 2006).

Founded by artists in 1978, the mission of On the Boards is to introduce Northwest audiences to international innovators in contemporary dance, theater and music while developing and presenting new work by promising performing artists in the region.  In the past four years alone, On the Boards has presented artists from 13 countries, hosted more than 30 world premieres and commissioned close to 24 brand new works by international and regional artists.

Through its Inter/National series On the Boards was among the first organizations in the country to present and premiere breakthrough performances by visionary, internationally recognized artists such as Laurie Anderson, Bill T. Jones, Spalding Gray, The Wooster Group, dumb type, Needcompany, Sankai Juku, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and many others.  Similarly, through its NW Series, On the Boards has supported some of the first performances by talented regional artists like 33 Fainting Spells, Sarah Rudinoff, Maureen Whiting Company, Seattle Chamber Players, Allen Johnson, locust, and "Awesome," all of whom have gone on to build a significant national following.  As the first organization to present these and other emerging artists in the Northwest, OtB plays a vital role in the regional and national cultural ecology.

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Leadership support for The Joyce Theater Foundation’s 2008–2009 season has been received from the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust.

Major support for The Joyce has been provided by The Boeing Company, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, First Republic Bank, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, JPMorgan Chase Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, The Shubert Foundation and The Starr Foundation.  Additional lead support has been provided by Alphawood Foundation, Bloomberg L.P., The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Industrial Color / Global Edit, William J. and Dorothy K. O’Neill Foundation and The Jerome Robbins Foundation.

Programs of The Joyce are made possible, in part, with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

Special support for The A.W.A.R.D. Show! at Joyce SoHo has been provided by Scott Kasen.  Additional support for Joyce SoHo has been provided by the Lila Acheson Wallace Theater Fund established in The New York Community Trust by the founders of the Reader’s Digest Association, Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

Photos courtesy of (in order from top to bottom-second photo unknown source):  Kate Sanderson, Steven Schreiber and Karen Wade