Highlights of the Dance Magazine Awards
How do you sum up an evening that includes performances of stage-shaking passion; heartfelt speeches that make you laugh and then make you ugly cry; and an inescapable sense of beautiful, joyful, warm-and-fuzzy #dancerlove?
You can do it the way legendary Merce Cunnigham dancer Valda Setterfield did it last night: By declaring that there’s nothing better than being in a room full of dancers, whom she called the world’s bravest, most generous souls. (Not too shabby.) Or you can do it in six words: Welcome to the Dance Magazine Awards.
Yay!
Last night’s ceremony marked the DM Awards’ 61st anniversary, and this year’s crop of honorees included luminaries from all corners of the dance world. None other than Mikhail Baryshnikov graced the stage to present the evening’s first award to Karen Kain, one of the National Ballet of Canada’s loveliest ballerinas and now its artistic director. Kain was one of the first people Baryshnikov met after he defected from Russia, and the two have kept up a beautiful friendship for decades—though Baryshnikov lamented in his speech that he was too short to ever dance with her. (That honor went, instead, to slouches like Rudolf Nureyev.)
Baryshnikov and Kain: BFFLs.
Also representing #teamballet was honoree Marcelo Gomes, the gorgeous American Ballet Theatre principal and choreographer who charms the heck out of both audiences and his adoring ballerinas. We were treated to a pas de deux from Gomes’ recent premiere for ABT, AfterEffect—lushly danced by Cassandra Trenary and Thomas Forster—that put Gomes’ deep understanding of the intricacies of partnering on display. And recently retired ABT star Julie Kent made a sweetly teary speech in which she noted that even babies “immediately feel safe in Marcelo’s arms, just as I do.” D’awwwwww.
Kent in her safe place
Setterfield (wearing the world’s most amazing plaid pantsuit ensemble) paid tribute to David Vaughan, a dancer who basically invented the job of “dance archivist” and has served in that role for Merce Cunningham’s company since 1976. Now 91, Vaughan shows zero signs of slowing down: In his lovely acceptance speech, he talked about the fact that his old friend, dance artist Pepper Fajans, had convinced him to return to the stage next month. May we all be that awesome in our tenth decade.
We saw a vividly drawn excerpt from honoree Jawole Willa Jo Zollar‘s Walking with ‘Trane—a musing on John Coltrane’s legacy—performed by Zollar’s company, Urban Bush Women, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. Zollar spoke movingly about the fact that reaching a “point of stability” in one’s career was actually a bad sign: On a heart monitor, ups and downs indicate a pulse, while death is a stable flatline. She urged everyone to embrace life’s natural rises and falls—though now, she added, whenever she’s feeling low, she can look at her Dance Magazine Award and say, “Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, you are a bada**.” FACT.
The highlight of highlights for me, though, was watching flamenco virtuosa Soledad Barrio blaze through Solea, accompanied by three masterful musicians (and the “Olés!” of the appreciative crowd). Tattooing the stage with her heels, slicing the air with her arms, searing our souls with the depth of her passion, Barrio illustrated exactly what the DM Awards are all about (Charlie Brown): honoring the most extraordinary of extraordinary dance artists, the people whose brilliance is life-enhancing and life-affirming and, sometimes, life-changing.
Olé, Sole!
Check out video highlights from the awards here:
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