Features > PostcardsArtists write from the field

#MyFashionMoves — The Dance Enthusiast Enjoys Fashion at The Bessies

Looking Back On a Star and Fashion Filled Evening

The New York Dance and Performance Awards (The Bessies), NYC’s premier dance awards honoring, outstanding creative work in the field,  are produced in partnership with Dance/NYC, and were held at the legendary Apollo Theateron Oct 20th at 7:30 p.m.

NYC First Lady Chirlane McCray gave opening remarks, and Lisa Kron, whose hit musical Fun Home will make its Broadway debut this year, hosted the evening. Performances represented the past three decades of Bessie-recognized work, including Megan Williams in Mark Morris’ Bijoux, Shelter from the early work of Urban Bush Women, Jennifer Miller and Jennie Romaine’s Circus Amok, and Michelle Dorrance’s Three to One.

Arthur Mitchell Winner of The Bessies Lifetime Achievement Award

Virginia Johnson, current Artistic Director of Dance Theatre of Harlem, along with the great Jessye Norman, presented Arthur Mitchell with the Lifetime Achievement award. Mikki Shepard, the original producer of the first DanceAfrica! at BAM, presented Dr. Chuck Davis with the Service to the Field award. Other presenters included Robert Battle, FayeDriscoll, Megan Fairchild, Karen Finley, Crazy Legs, Tere O’Connor, Jessye Norman, Omagbitse Omagbemi, Miki Orihara, Annie B-Parson, Lenny Pickett, Ken Swift and Wendy Whelan.

The Dance Enthusiast partnered with The Bessies to highlight "Bessies fashion" via our #MYFASHIONMOVES contest. We'd like to say THANKS! to all the fashionistas and dance lovers who shared photos of their favorite looks on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Here are the top 3 picks of the night:

LOOKING GOOD!

It's about high time to #getenthused for dance!
Submitted by Kimberly from New York / @soulforhire on Twitter.

Sparkly, sophisticated wear befits the occasion.
Submitted by Kelsey / @kgrills615 on Instagram.
 

Friends having a ball of a time at The Bessies.
In picture: @KwanzaaKid, @10_Tunes and @StarNDaMaking
Submitted by @KwanzaaKid via Twitter.

SPRINKLED THROUGHOUT THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF  AWARD WINNERS ARE

SOME OF OUR  EDITORS' CHOICES FOR BEST RED CARPET LOOK

---

Miki Orihara, Bessie Award Winner and Presenter, Goes Barefoot Modern Dance 

While Christine Jowers, Editor-in-Chief of The Dance Enthusiast, Loves Her Four Inch Heels :Photo Courtesy of The Bessie Awards

Juried Bessie Award: Gerard and Kelly, for the inspired use of a simple score of movement and text to create mesmerizing and moving duets in Timelining, and for bringing a fierce and rigorous intelligence to their work that never loses touch with the heart at its center.

Outstanding Production: John Jasperse’s Within Between at New York Live Arts, for a feast of unpredictable kinetic imagination shaped by a sequence of dazzling light and soundscapes.

NYC's  First Lady Chirlane McCray, Dr. Chuck Davis,Winner of the Service to the Field Award, and Newly Retired NYCB Ballerina, Wendy Whelan

Also for Outstanding Production: Okwui Okpokwasili in collaboration with Peter Born for Bronx Gothic at Danspace Project, for creating a world within a world in which she embodied the fear, clarity and intelligence of a young girl; using text and movement to make public that which is intensely private.

Also for Outstanding Production: Camille A. Brown’s Mr. Tol E. RAncE produced by 651 Arts at Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts, for using the American vernacular dance forms of jazz, tap, and hip hop mixed with pop culture references and African-American stereotypes to question herself and her audience.

Bill T. Jones, Artistic Director of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and Fearless Leader of New York Live Arts, busts a move.

 

You Can Still Enter The Dance Enthusiasts @dancenthusiast #myfashionmoves Photo Contest!

YOUR  STYLISH PHOTO COULD BE RIGHT HERE!!!!
 

 

 

Also for Outstanding Production: Akram Khan’s Desh at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival, for bringing a swath of Bangladeshi culture to life with a shape-shifting performance danced within a magical set that conjured a world of flora and fauna from muslin, movement, and light.

Outstanding Revival: Nora Chipaumire’s Dark Swan performed by Urban Bush Women at The Joyce, for re-imagining a severe and beautiful solo into an expanded emotional force field performed by nine powerful women.

Choreographer Camille A. Brown Bessie Award , Winner for Outstanding Production, Rocks Psychedlic Purple and Gorgeous Gold  Hoops

Outstanding Performance: Stuart Singer in John Jasperse’s Within Between at New York Live Arts, for a forceful grace capable of both commanding space and rendering delicate physical details with astonishing dynamic clarity.

Also for Outstanding Performance: Rebecca Serrell Cyr in Donna Uchizono’s Fire Underground at New York Live Arts, for a mesmerizing performance demanding precision, control, and a remarkable range of intense emotions and providing the strong quiet center around which the narrative of the piece revolves.

Also for Outstanding Performance: Linda Celeste Sims, a major contributor for nearly two decades to the work of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, for being an expert interpreter of a vast range of styles who goes to the heart of chorographers’ visions and crafts countless tour-de- force performances.

Lane Harwell of Dance/NYC, Sports a bit of Color with his #bowtiesarecool Bowtie, While  Mikki Sheppard, of the Apollo Theater; Chirlane McCray NYC's First Lady, and Lucy Sexton, of the Bessie Awards, Look Glamour Chic and Beyond Basic  in Black

Also for Outstanding Performance: Aakash Odedra in James Brown: Get on the Good Foot – a Celebration in Dance at the Apollo Theater, for a dynamically fluid translation of James Brown’s rhythms into kathak and bharata natyam expressions, turning traditional styles into original, contemporary, and captivating performance.

Outstanding Music Composition: Simphiwe Dana with Giuliano Modarelli, and Complete Quartet for Exit/Exist, choreographed by Gregory Maqoma and produced by 651 Arts at Kumble Theater for the Performing Art, for a tightly woven musical score, combining subtle guitar and traditional South African a capella choir singing, which movingly portrayed the struggle to maintain tradition in the face of colonialism.

Presenter Faye Driscoll in Dashing Stripes and Suit  (L) and (R) Presenter Omagbemi Omagbitse  Combines Contrasting Black and White Patterns Beautifully

 with First Lady Chirlane McCray

Also for Outstanding Music Composition: Nicholas Young at American Tap Dance Foundation’s Rhythm in Motion, for inventive percussion platforms integrating the tap dancer’s traditional hardwood floor with electronic sound technology to allow for a deeply layered, live composition.

Outstanding Visual Design: Peter Ksander, Olivera Gajic, Ryan Holsopple, Chris Kuhl, and Keith Skretch, for a theater set seamlessly doubled by video projections, echoing the role of memory with its odd tricks and resurrections in the profoundly unified and moving production of This Was the End by Mallory Catlett.

Other Fun Looks of the Evening

Tony Wagg ,Artistic and Executive Director of the American Tap Dance Foundation Gives Us A Look.

Please Help Us Identify His Friend with the Colorful Tie.

Christopher Duggan, Dance Photographer Extraordinaire Tries to Get a Selfie with Michelle Dorrance Tap Dancer Extraordinaire *note to Enthusiasts -buy Chris and Iphone for this

Here's Looking At You Kids!  The Press at The Bessies.

You Can Still Enter The Dance Enthusiasts @dancenthusiast #myfashionmoves Photo Contest!
It's never too late to show off your fashion moves to #myfashionmoves on The Dance Enthusiast aka in social media land @dancenthusiast!  Join our social media contest here ( all the instructions are in the link..) and we will feature you on our site! The winning (est) moving (est) dancey(est) person pictured at the end of our run, will merit an article on The Dance Enthusiast. #getenthused and enter #myfashionmoves @dancenthusiast.