Martha Hill Dance Fund Awards to Take Place Virtually This November

The MARTHA HILL DANCE FUND has announced the 2021 Martha Hill Dance Fund Virtual Celebration, November 22, 2021, streaming pre-recorded via Vimeo, but with the energy of a live happening! The Martha Hill Dance Fund continues to perpetuate the legacy of a remarkable woman whose influence in the world of dance and performance knows no bounds. Guest host/emcee this year is DANNI GEE, currently Dance Curator of City Parks Summer Stage and former dancer with Philadanco and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre.

This year's Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to JAWOLE WILLA JO ZOLLAR, and Mid-Career Award will go to HEIDI LATSKY. The awardees will be in conversation with DANNI GEE, discussing the state of the art in these complex times. Videographer DANIEL MADOFF is creating short films about both awardees, and the evening will also include a short dance film by Liz Gerring ,(featuring Cemiyon Barber, one of the 2020 Martha Hill Covid Relief grantees), as well as a Limón Dance Company excerpt in celebration of their 75th Anniversary. Board President VERNON SCOTT will update the community on current MHDF projects and initiatives. Audience members will be able to chat during the presentation, and there will be a separate link to a ZOOM After-Party for the requisite socializing that has become a well known feature of the Fund's annual in-person gala events.

JAWOLE WILLA JO ZOLLAR

Growing up in Kansas City, Missouri, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar earned her B.A. in dance from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and her M.F.A. in dance from Florida State University. In 1980 Jawole moved to New York City to study with Dianne McIntyre at Sounds in Motion. In 1984 she founded Urban Bush Women (UBW) as a performance ensemble dedicated to exploring the use of cultural expression as a catalyst for social change. She has created over 34 works for UBW, as well as for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and others.

Her collaborations include Compagnie Jant-Bi from Senegal and Nora Chipaumire. Her company has toured five continents and was selected as one of three U.S. dance companies to inaugurate a cultural diplomacy program for the U.S. Department of State in 2010. She is the founder of UBW Summer Leadership Institute, founding Artistic Director and Chief Visioning Partner of UBW and currently holds the position of the Nancy Smith Fichter Professor of Dance and Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor at Florida State University.

Jawole received a 2008 United States Artists Wynn fellowship and a 2009 fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial. She was awarded the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award as well as honorary degrees from Columbia College, Chicago, Tufts University, Rutgers University, and the Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA. Jawole received the Dance Magazine Award in 2015 and the Dance/USA Honor Award in 2016. Recently, Jawole received the 2017 Bessie Lifetime Achievement in Dance Award for her work in the field and is a recipient of a 2021 Dance Teacher Award. In 2020, The Ford Foundation named Urban Bush Women one of America's Cultural Treasures. Most recently, Jawole was awarded a 2021 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.

Heidi Latsky, a committed leader in the physically integrated dance field, began Heidi Latsky Dance (HLD) in 2001. The company has toured internationally and been presented at many institutions, including Peak Performances, Kennedy Center, American Dance Festival, Joyce Theater, Whitney Museum, Cooper Hewitt, National Portrait Gallery, ICA Boston, and annually at Lincoln Center since 2015.

HLD has received support from funders like NEA, NYSCA, Ford Foundation, Creative Capital and the MAP Foundation. Latsky has presented at TEDxWOMEN, a feature on her work GIMP (2008) was nominated for an Emmy, and she has spoken at Harvard University, Maxine Green Institute, Chicago Humanities Festival and the Seventh International Conference on Movement and Computing. As HLD is dedicated to disrupting space, dismantling normal and redefining beauty in a broad way, the company has a portfolio of educational toolkits. She was the Head of the Movement Department at the School for Film and Television for7 years, on faculty at STEPS and American Dance Festival and has served as an adjudicator of dance numerous times. In 2020, Latsky was commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts to create a film titled SOLO FLIGHT for the 30th anniversary of the ADA.

Currently, Latsky is creating a series of 15 films/movement portraits as well as collaborating with digital artists creating interactive experiences. ON DISPLAY (since 2015) - her live sculpture court series - is now a global phenomenon, performed annually on December 3rd to honor the UN's International Day of Persons with Disabilities with, to date, over 100 sites and 30 countries including Indonesia, Korea, Israel, China and Peru. Because of the pandemic, ON DISPLAY GLOBAL 2020 was a 24-hour Zoom event. This year, she was also commissioned by Peak Performances at Montclair State University to film ON DISPLAY for broadcast. The company's first live in-person dance event occurred June 13 when two HLD dancers activated Rashid Johnson's RED STAGE for Creative Time. Following that, the first installation of SOLO FLIGHT, including three volumetric videos (holograms) and three films, was shown for a month at the Astoria Performing Arts Center.

November 22, 2021 at 7 PM EST via Vimeo

Tickets: $25

To register: www.marthahilldance.org