A.W.A.R.D show Winner!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Press contact: Janet Stapleton June 2, 2008
212-633-0016 / jstapleton@.att.net
THE NETA DANCE COMPANY
IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE
THE WINNER OF THE 2008 A.W.A.R.D. SHOW!
Artists With Audiences Responding to Dance
IS
DEGANIT SHEMY
The final event of the 2008 A.W.A.R.D. Show! took place last night, Sunday, June 1, 2008 at Joyce SoHo. Choreographer Deganit Shemy was selected as the winner of the $10,000 unrestricted creative/production grant.
The event featured performances by three choreographers who were selected as finalists at each of the preliminary events, including Deganit Shemy with her work Iodine (finalist of the May 29 event), Larry Keigwin with his work Mattress Suite (finalist of the May 30 event), and Andrea Miller with her work I Can See Myself in Your Pupil (finalist of the May 31 event). In addition to the $10,000 grant awarded to Deganit Shemy, the second place artists – Larry Keigwin and Andrea Miller – each received $1,000 grants.
All A.W.A.R.D. Show! grants - earmarked as unrestricted creation and production grants - have been generously underwritten by Scott G. Kasen. The aim of The A.W.A.R.D. Show! and the grants attached to this series is to foster a spirit of exploration and creativity in dance in New York City and beyond. Each of the winners also received a hand made “Libertutu” award (a statue of liberty in a tutu skirt) standing for freedom of the imagination.
Deganit Shemy was selected by a panel of arts professionals including: Elizabeth Price (Chair, George Mason University Dance Department), Jennifer Calienes (Director, Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC) at Florida State University, Christopher d'Amboise (Choreographer/Director/Former NYCB Dancer) and Nicky Paraiso (Dance & Performance Curator, at La MaMa e.t.c.). The audience vote at the final event counted as a fifth member of the panel.
The A.W.A.R.D. Show! series is dedicated to the presentation and discussion of new dance work. At the culmination of each event audiences selected one choreographer as a finalist. While surveying the works, audiences were asked to think objectively about their choices and were offered criteria points to consider before making their selection including: Was there clear vision and direction? Was the choreography engaging? Did the music or sound score support the dance? What was the world/context of the work? Audiences were also encouraged to observe the composition, timing, phrasing, use of space, and overall performance quality in making their choices about the finalists for each event. The panel for the final event was instructed to consider the “POEM” criteria when adjudicating the four works that were performed: Potential, Originality, Execution and Merit –. P.O.E.M. is: Potential Originality, Execution and Merit. Potential: in viewing the work, do you sense that the artist has the potential to grow and evolve and furthermore does the artist has the maturity to take advantage of such an award at this point in their career. Originality: in viewing the work, do you sense a personal, unique voice? How singular is the artists movement language, concept and vision? Execution: in viewing the work, were the performers committed, well rehearsed, and capable of carrying the intricacies of the artists' vision? Merit: in viewing the work, can you attribute a value of the whole based on the combination of the works’ Potential, Originality and Execution?
Each of the 2008 preliminary events featured the work of four emerging and mid-career choreographers, followed by a moderated discussion between the artists and audience. The artists selected for the series were chosen through a countrywide open call for proposals. Out of the 160 choreographers and companies who submitted applications this year, 12 choreographers were selected to participate in the 2008 series. Presenting work this season were Ballet Noir (Corey Baker and Leyland Simmons), Belinda McGuire, Deganit Shemi, Natasa Trifan Performance Group (Natasa Trifan), Lyndsey Karr, Keigwin and Company (Larry Keigwin), Kristen O’Neal, Jen Rosenblit (Bottomheavy Productions), Julian Barnett, Gallim Dance (Andrea Miller), Ase Dance Theatre Collective (Adia Tamar Whitaker), Every Man Adventures (Wendy Seyb).
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ARTIST BIOS
Deganit Shemy is originally from Israel. Her first solo was presented at The Other Dance Festival and The International Exposure Festival at the Susanne Dallal Center in Tel Aviv, where she also won a 2003 Gvanim Bemachol Award for her trio ALUM. Shemy was named “Young Choreographer of the Year” by the Israeli Ministry of Education in 2004. Since re-locating to New York, she has been an Artist-in-Residence at Dance New Amsterdam, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Movement Research, and Dance Theatre Workshop. She received space grants from the Harkness Dance Center in 2005 and 2008.
Larry Keigwin’s prolific and wide-ranging dance career began as a back-up dancer for Club MTV. In addition to choreographic work with Keigwin and Company, his recent commissions have included The New York City Ballet's Choreographic Institute, The Martha Graham Dance Company, and The Juilliard Dance Ensemble. Other choreographic credits include work with the pop band Fischerspooner, comedian Murray Hill and as an Associate Choreographer for both the the Radio City Rockettes and the Off-Broadway musical The Wild Party. Visit HYPERLINK "http://www.larrykeigwin.com/" www.larrykeigwin.com for all the latest news and grooves.
Andrea Miller is a graduate of The Juilliard School. She had been a dancer with Ensemble Batsheva, Cedar Lake, The Limón Dance Company and Buglisi Dance Theater. She established Gallim Dance in 2006. She is a recipient of Hubbard Street 2 Choreographic Competition, The Yard residency, and Stella Adler Artist-in- Residence. Miller’s work has been presented at Jacobs Pillow, Judson Church, Dance Theater Workshop, Joyce SoHo, Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theater, The Juilliard Theater, and Teatron Suzan Delal. She has been commissioned by RDT (Utah), Arts Umbrella (Vancouver) and the New Jersey Dance Theater Ensemble.
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The A.W.A.R.D Show! is a production of the Neta Dance Company. It is supported with the generous contributions of LMCC’s Manhattan Community Arts Fund, The Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, The University of Florida School of Theatre and Dance, Explore Dance, The Friends of The Neta Dance Company and the generous contribution of Scott G. Kasen.
Neta Pulvermacher (Founder/Curator) was born and raised in Kibbutz Lehavot Habashan, Israel. She graduated from Juilliard in 1985 and holds an MFA from the ADF/Hollins University. She founded The Neta Dance Company in 1987 and since then has choreographed over 65 works for her company and for numerous ballet and modern companies. Her company tours throughout the US as well as in Europe and Israel. Neta is an Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of Florida. She has choreographed for director, Mira Nair’s feature film, The Namesake, which was released in March of 2007. Most recently she was invited to the MANCC at FSU to work with the Limón Dance Company. She is the founder and producer of the A.W.A.R.D. Show! which now takes place in New York, Florida and Utah. Recent commissions include: Matte Asher Dance Company in Israel, Frank Sinatra High School for the Arts, Klor Music and Dance Center in Israel, Roger Williams University, and others. She is the proud mother of Alon. Upcoming projects: Lady Justice Rides the Wagon (a site Specific Work with real NY women judges) at City Hall Park and a New York season which will include the premiere of the full length Air in fall 2008.
The creation of Joyce SoHo was made possible by the magnanimous support of the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust. Altria Group, Inc. is the 2007-2008 Season Sponsor of The Joyce Theater. Joyce SoHo is supported by private funds from Carnegie Corporation of New York, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, First Republic Bank, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, JPMorgan Chase Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, and The Starr Foundation; and by public funds from the New York City Council; the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency; and the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art. Special support for Joyce SoHo has been provided by the Lila Acheson Wallace Theater Fund established in The New York Community Trust by the founders of the Reader’s Digest Association, The Greenwall Foundation, Goldman, Sachs & Co., and Foundation for Contemporary Arts.
The New York Times
DANCE REVIEW
Dancing for Dollars (10,000, to Be Exact)
By CLAUDIA LA ROCCO
Critics may not be able to vote during the four nights of “The A.W.A.R.D. Show!” choreography competition,
but it’s nice to think that we have a voice in what the event’s artist director, Neta Pulvermacher, described as
“an exercise in democracy and in seeing.” Think of us as dance superdelegates, surveying the bigger picture
from afar.
In opening remarks at the Joyce SoHo on Thursday, Ms. Pulvermacher urged viewers not to vote along
partisan lines. Much, after all, is at stake: at Sunday’s finale the three winning choreographers, one each
from the first three nights, will compete for $10,000. The others get only audience feedback, scribbled
anonymously on paper slips tossed in brown paper bags, as their consolation prizes.
With brass ring in mind on the first night, Corey Baker and Leyland Simmons, co-artistic directors of Ballet
Noir, might have been using the kitchen-sink strategy in Mr. Baker’s “Colors on a Canvas.” Live music by the
tenor Linzey Jones, the violinist J. Mae Barizo and the bucket drummer Darrion Movasseghi accompanied
eight bare-chested dancers muscling through go-for-broke ballet-meets-modern moves. (Both directors have
danced with the Complexions Contemporary Ballet, and it shows.) At one point a dancer formed a circle with
his arms, and another dove through, latching onto his waist in a horizontal hold. Winner-take-all
competitions aren’t for wimps.
Belinda McGuire took the opposite tack in “Fable,” set to the love duet from Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde.”
Dressed in a simple white shift and using a relatively small movement palette with deep lunges and
backward arches, Ms. McGuire created a dreamy, sensual mood. But there were hints of darkness, including
a jagged, vinelike pattern that snaked up Ms. McGuire’s bare back and down one leg.
Natasa Trifan’s “Self Departure/Self Descend” did not quite come off, despite Martin Burga’s intriguing
video of Ms. Trifan’s tightly curled form. In person, and wearing Oana Botez Ban’s fussy, fabric-heavy
pantsuit, Ms. Trifan engaged in a flimsy duet with Rossella Fusco.
Then came Deganit Shemy’s nasty little gem of a dance, “Iodine,” and this superdelegate’s vote was won.
Five women (excellent all) functioned like cogs in a brutal machine, now freezing in blank-faced tableaus,
now using precise, stabbing movements to manipulate one another into rough, sometimes sexual positions.
Necks were gripped, faces slapped, mouths rubbed by the backs of hands.
Ms. Shemy has something more exciting going for her than $10,000. But she will get a crack at that too: the
voters, no fools, sent her into the final round.
“The A.W.A.R.D. Show!” runs through Sunday at the Joyce SoHo, 155 Mercer Street; (212) 352-3101,
joyce.org.
