BAX Announces Arts and Artists in Progress Awards

BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange announces BAX arts and artists in progress Awards at the BAX 20th Birthday Celebration

May 5, 2011, 7:30 pm
at the Prospect Park Picnic House, Brooklyn, NY

BAX arts and artists in progress Awards:

BAX arts and artists in progress Awardees have revealed and transformed our creative world. By instigating and enduring change they have deepened the definition of their field and paved the way for others.
The PASSING IT ON AWARD creates a complete cycle where a panel of peers chooses the awardees and the awardees choose someone who demonstrates some of the same qualities that they, themselves, were chosen for.

awards presented by
Marya Warshaw
-- Founder & Executive Director, BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange

artist award:
Gus Solomons jr
-- choreographer and co-founder, PARADIGM
-- passing it on to Malcolm Jason Low

arts educator award:
Terry Greiss
-- Co-Founder & Executive Director, Irondale Ensemble Project
-- passing it on to Leese Walker

arts manager award:
Leslie Strongwater
-- Associate Artistic Director, Dixon Place
-- passing it on to Andy Horwitz

honorary award:
Long standing theater/dance partnership between the Brooklyn New School (BNS) and BAX, with José Joaquín García as lead teaching artist

BAX 20th Birthday Celebration

hosted by George Emilio Sánchez & Christalyn Wright

with performances by
LAVA, Famous Accordion Orchestra, Mike Albo, Faye Driscoll, BAXco Youth Dance Company (performing choreography by Nami Yamamoto), Drew Petersen, and more...

Drinks, hors d'oeuvres and cupcakes sponsored by
Cuvée Bistro & Bar at The Greenporter Hotel | Brooklyn Brewery | Sweetcheeks Brooklyn

food provided by
COMMUNITY MARKETS and its affiliates: Alex's Tomato Farm | The Amazing Real Live Food Co. | Block Factory Tamales | Bombay Emerald Chutney Co. | Bread Alone Bakery | Doc Pickle | Flour City Pasta | Hudson Valley Duck Farm | Jersey Farm Produce | Migliorelli Farm | Orwasher's Bakery | Samios Foods | Tierra Farm.

TICKETS:

$100 -- Birthday Champion -- reserved seating for performances ($75 tax deductible*)
$50 -- Birthday Guest -- ($25 tax deductible*)
$25 -- Artist/Student/Low-Income

All proceeds benefit the artists & programs of BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange.

RSVP by April 22nd

DIRECTIONS:

Enter Prospect Park at 5th Street and Prospect Park West, at the Litchfield Villa entrance. Walk along the path passing the Villa on your left, cross West Drive, and The Picnic House will be directly across from you.
By Public Transportation:
· F Train to 7th Avenue station or 15th Street/Prospect Park station
· 2 or 3 Train to Grand Army Plaza
· B61 to 9th Street and Prospect Park West
By Car:
· From Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges: Take Flatbush Avenue to Grand Army Plaza, Prospect Park West exit, to 4th Street
· From Verrazano Bridge or BQE: Take BQE to Prospect Expressway, 10th Avenue/11th Avenue exit. Make a right onto 10th Avenue. Turn right onto 20th Street, and again right on 7th Avenue. Make a right on 5th Street to Prospect Park West.

AWARDEE BIOS

ARTIST AWARD
Gus Solomons jr performed as soloist in the companies of Donald McKayle, Joyce Trisler, Pearl Lang, Martha Graham, and Merce Cunningham, among others, before and after forming his own troupe, The Solomons Company/Dance, in 1972. He is a leading figure in postmodern, and experimental dance, creating over a hundred seventy dances for his own company. Gus has continued to create extraordinary work of his own and mentor younger, developing choreographers. Paradigm, the company he co-founded with Carmen deLavallade and Dudley Williams has changed the way we value aging in Dance. "I didn't think about dance as a young career - I thought of it as a career (period). I worked with Merce (Cunnningham, who made work until his death at age 90) and Martha Graham (who made work until her death at age 96). I know you don't have to stop, and the idea of continuing appeals to me in many ways. It is a great experience when Paradigm company members work as guest artists with younger companies. The youth gives resonance to the age and vice versa. Audiences are very moved by seeing people our age dancing at all and then paired with these kids... That's probably one of the reasons that it's important for me to keep doing this - because more and more people are getting to be our age, and it allows them to see possibilities.".

ARTIST PASSING IT ON AWARD
Malcolm Low is originally from Chicago where he first trained with Joseph Holmes Chicago, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Homer Bryant and the Ruth Page Foundation. Low went on to perform with Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Co., Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal, Ballet British Columbia, Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, Stephen Peternio, Complexions, Zvi Gotheneir and Dancers, White Wave Young Soon Kim Dance Company, Margo Sappington and most notably the Bill T. Jones/ Arnie Zane Dance Co., where he had the great pleasure of touring with Bill T. Jones on his solo show As I Was Saying. Recently, he has been working with Crystal Pite and her company KIDD PIVOT on the project LOST ACTION. Low has been showing work in NYC since 1999: at the River to River Festival in collaboration with DJ Spooky (2003), The House That Jack Built at DanceNow (2009), Catch N Release Variation #35 at Harlem Stage/Emoves (2009), and Luscious Colors of an Unclear Canvas at the Wave Rising Series (2009) and Uneven Wall False Security/HOME (2010) and Pushing Against Sisyphus at Brooklyn Arts Exchange (2011)

ARTS EDUCATOR AWARD
Terry Greiss has been working in the theater for 40 years. He is an actor, director and co-founder, of NYC's Irondale Ensemble Project. He has performed in over forty roles with the company, and is a co-creator of most of Irondale's original works and education programs. He has conducted hundreds of workshops in public schools, prisons, theaters, professional training programs and community venues and theaters.
Terry has been part of three Russian-American collaborations between Irondale and the International Classic Center of St. Petersburg (1990,1994, 1998). In April 2008 he was invited by the US Embassy to lecture and teach at Moscow's leading theater academies, the Moscow Art Theatre and G.I.T.I.S., at the theater academy in Yaroslavl and at to speak about the American ensemble theater movement at the Golden Mask Festival.
He has been a panelist for the NEA, NYS Council on the Arts, Brooklyn Arts Council and numerous other funding organizations. Terry was the Founding President of the Network of Ensemble Theaters, a national consortium of artist-driven permanent theater ensembles. He currently serves on the Steering Committee of the Downtown Brooklyn Arts Association.
In addition to his work at Irondale, he has taught at the New School and the University of Wisconsin Drama Center and the Broadway Theatre Workshop. Occasionally venturing outside of Irondale as an actor, Terry has performed at the Manhattan Theater Club and most recently in Sara Ruhl's new adaptation of Chekhov's The Three Sisters, directed by John Doyle at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. He has been seen on PBS American Masters Series, The American Novel.
In Oct. 2008, after leading Irondale's three million dollar capital campaign, Terry and the Irondale Ensemble opened the Irondale Center the company's first permanent home, in the BAM Cultural District of Brooklyn, New York. He is a graduate of the NYC High School for the Performing Arts and Sarah Lawrence College.

ARTS EDUCATOR PASSING IT ON AWARD
Leese Walker (Teaching-Artist/Performer/Artistic Director) Since 1992, Leese has worked as a teaching-artist for many of New York City's leading cultural institutions including: Brooklyn Academy of Music, T.D.F., Roundabout Theater, National Shakespeare Company, MCC Theater, Theater for A New Audience, ENACT and Irondale. Additionally, Leese has worked as an arts-education consultant developing curriculum, shaping programs and leading professional development for teachers, teaching-artists and corporate clients. Leese is the Artistic/Producing Director of the Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble in NYC. She founded the multi-disciplinary ensemble in 1997 to create politically-charged, original theater and to create high quality arts-education programs. Leese has designed a wide array of applied theater programming for Strike Anywhere including a year-long residency program at Manhattan International High School (a public school for recent immigrants) where SA provides incoming freshman with experiential ways of learning communication skills. In 2004, Leese was awarded the prestigious APPEX fellowship which allowed her to participate in a 6 week artistic exchange in Ubud, Bali. In 2009, she was recognized as an Emerging Leader by Arts Presenters. She served on the board of directors for the Network of Ensemble Theatres from 2003-2008. As a co-director/performer, Leese has collaborated with Ariel Dance Theatre (Austin, TX), Oregon's Sojourn Theatre, Anitya (Paris, France) and with NACL Theatre on 10 Brecht Poems, her critically-acclaimed 2 woman show which has toured to over 40 venues nationally. Leese has performed with: the Irondale Ensemble, master puppeteer Ralph Lee, the Judith Shakespeare Company, and the Wendy Osserman Dance Company. She is a core member of the Walter Thompson Orchestra. Leese currently freelances as a teaching-artist with the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Roundabout Theatre Company and Strike Anywhere.

ARTS MANAGER AWARD
Leslie Strongwater has studied at Circle in the Square, British American Drama Academy, and Hampshire College, where she received her BA in theater studies and art history. She recently completed a Master's Program at NYU where she was able to combine her passions for puppetry and education. A freelance director and teaching artist, she has worked with Lone Wolf Tribe, Pack of Others, Lumberob, OBIE award-winning Peculiar Works, and Suzan-Lori Parks at The Public. She is the Director of Programming at Dixon Place where she has worked for the past five years. Her series, Puppet Blok, has received three grants from The Jim Henson Foundation. Currently, she is working on The Puppetry Project, a series of interviews with professional puppeteers in the hopes of promoting the extraordinary art form and expanding its use among special populations. Named 'Best Curator' by Paper Magazine, she promises not to let it all go to her head!

ARTS MANAGER PASSING IT ON AWARD
Andrew Horwitz is a curator and producer based in NYC. He currently works as curator at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council where he produces public programs, particularly The River To River Festival. He was worked as producer at Performance Space 122 and as curator of PRELUDE, a festival of contemporary theater and performance at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center of the Graduate Center at CUNY. He has served on many panels and has taught career development workshops at artist service organization The Field. He continues to work with independent artists on new projects in all disciplines. He is the founder and editor of Culturebot.org, a website devoted to arts, culture and ideas.

BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange is a professional community arts center located in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Artist opportunities include the Artist in Residence program, the Space Grant program, the Subsidized Rehearsal Space Rental program, Professional Development Workshops for Artists, and more. For more information about BAX and its opportunities for performing artists please call 718-832-0018 or visit us on the web at www.bax.org.