The Bessies Announce 2023 Angel Award Honorees

The New York Dance and Performance Awards, The Bessies, will celebrate the 2023 Angel Award honorees: adrienne maree brown, Lane Harwell, Young Soon Kim, and, in memoriam, Gus Solomons jr, at the 2023 Bessies Angel Party on Wednesday, October 11, at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The award honors arts and culture workers whose contributions have had an immense impact on the dance and performance field.

Presentations and remarks by nia love, Wendy Perron, Heather Robles, george emilio sanchez, and Lucy Sexton.

The Bessies Angel Awards Host Committee: Yvonne Chow, maura nguyen donohue, Nicky Paraiso, Craig Peterson, and george emilio sanchez.

The 2023 Bessies Angel Party

Wednesday, October 11, 6:30–9:00pm ET
6:30pm: Cocktails and hors d'oeuvres
8:00pm: Remarks, award presentations, and a special performance by WHITE WAVE Dance
Location: The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, 111 Amsterdam Avenue, New York NY, 10023

Tickets start at $150 and are available at the link below.

Bessies Angel Honorees                                                 

adrienne maree brown grows healing ideas in public. Through her writing, which includes short- and long-form fiction, nonfiction, spells, tarot decks and poetry; her music, which includes songwriting, singing and an upcoming immersive musical ritual; and her podcasts, including How to Survive the End of the World, Octavia's Parables and The Emergent Strategy Podcast, adrienne has nurtured Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, Radical Imagination and Transformative Justice as ideas, frameworks, networks and practices for transformation. Her work is informed by 25 years of social and environmental justice facilitation primarily supporting Black liberation, her path of teaching somatics, her love of Octavia E Butler and visionary fiction, and her work as a doula. She is the author/editor of several published texts including Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds (2017), Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good (2019), Grievers (2021) and Maroons (2023), the first two novellas of her speculative fiction trilogy. After a multinational childhood, brown lived in New York, Oakland and Detroit before landing in her current home of Durham, NC.

Lane Harwell is a nonprofit and philanthropic leader working to advance arts and culture, civic engagement, and social justice. They chaired the steering committee for the Bessie Awards for nearly a decade when serving as the founding executive director of the service organization Dance/NYC. Harwell is currently a program officer of Creativity and Free Expression at the Ford Foundation. Their background encompasses creative, business, and civic realms, and includes an early career as a dancer with American Ballet Theatre Studio Company. They are an appointee to New York City's Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission. They also serve on the boards of the Association for Performing Arts Professionals and Funders for LGBT Issues and co-chair New York Grantmakers in the Arts, a peer network of grantmakers.

Young Soon Kim, Artistic Director of WHITE WAVE Dance, is a nationally and internationally acclaimed choreographer, whose work has been hailed for its exhilarating, visually stunning, and emotionally rich phrases and textures. In addition to her role as a performer and artistic director, Kim created a series of dance festivals soon after inaugurating the WHITE WAVE John Ryan Theater in Dumbo, Brooklyn, in 2001. She has since become one of the most recognized producers/curators in NYC and has also served as a juror for NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Kim and Company has performed at BAM Fisher, The Joyce Theater, The Kennedy Center, Dance Theater Workshop, Jacob's Pillow, American Dance Festival, and the 1988 Summer Olympics World Dance Festival (Korea), just to name a few. In June 2021, the Korean Arts Council, which manages the national archive for famous artists, chose Kim as the first active artist outside of Korea in all genres to be inducted into the archive.

Gus Solomons jr (August 27, 1938 – August 11, 2023) graduated in architecture from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and studied with Jan Veen at Boston Conservatory before moving to New York City to dance in Kicks and Co.! Solomons joined Donald McKayle's company and studied the Martha Graham Technique but soon felt the constraints of modern dance. He was part of the collective of avant-garde experimentalists that eventually formed the Judson Dance Theater. Then, postmodern choreographer Merce Cunningham asked Solomons to join his company. Solomons began interpreting Cunningham's postmodern concept of kinetic intention in his own choreography, founding The Solomons Company/Dance (1969-1994) and co-founding PARADIGM (1996-2011) with Carmen DeLavallade and Dudley Williams. He created over 165 dances and is known for his analytical approach, architectural concepts, musical collaborations, and use of video and other forms of media. He was a member of the Bessies Selection Committee and Steering Committee for a combined two decades.

Accessibility Notes from The Bessies: The evening's in-person events will include live ASL Interpretation.

Accessibility Notes from the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (NYPL): Please enter the event at 111 Amsterdam Avenue, New York NY 10023. The renovated building of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center is fully accessible to individuals with disabilities, including the incorporation of ADA-compliant ramps, doorways, restrooms and elevators. In addition, its screening facilities feature wheelchair-accessible viewing carrels, individual laptop computers enabling nonverbal communication, and volume-enhancing headphone adaptors. The Library for the Performing Arts also serves as a source for many performance accessibility projects at Lincoln Center and throughout the area.

                                                

ABOUT THE BESSIES

The New York Dance and Performance Awards have saluted outstanding and groundbreaking creative work in the dance field in New York City for 39 years. Known as “The Bessies” in honor of revered dance teacher Bessie Schönberg, the awards were established in 1984 by David R. White at Dance Theater Workshop. They recognize choreography, performance, music composition, visual design, legacy, and service to the field of dance by independent dance artists and organizations. Nominees are chosen by a selection committee composed of artists, presenters, producers, and writers. All those working in the dance field are invited to join the Bessies Membership and participate in annual discussions on the direction of the awards and nominate members to serve on the selection committee. For more information about The Bessies, visit www.bessies.org

           

The 2023-2024 Bessie Awards Selection Committee: Alex Smith, Anabella Lenzu, Celia Ipiotis, David Persky, Duke Dang, Farren Wood, Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte, Gregory English, Hannah Garner, Ivan Talijančić, Kate Thomas, Kyla Gordon, Lynn Schwab, Nami Yamamoto, PeiJu Chien-Pott, Porshia Derival, Rakia Seaborn, Ronald K. Alexander, Shalewa Mackall, Tyler Ashley, William Isaac, Yoko Murakami, Yoshiko Chuma, and zavé martohardjono.                                               

The Bessies Steering Committee: Yvonne H. Chow, Stanford Makishi, maura nguyễn donohue, Nicky Paraiso, Craig Peterson, Tiffany Rea-Fisher, george emilio sanchez, and Charmaine Warren.