2004

(2002-2003 Season)

The winners in the following categories were announced at the Isadora Duncan Dance Awards Ceremony on April 26, 2004. 

The winners are listed in boldface type. The other finalists are also listed, in regular font.

MUSIC/SOUND/TEXT

  • Reverend Markus Hawkins for music composition and performance, ElsewhereHere (Ledoh), at Noh Space

  • Patrick Grant for music; Fractured Fictions (Margaret Jenkins), for Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, at the Herbst Pavilion

  • Rob Bailis, Nathan Breitling, Phyllis Kamrin, Jeff Watson, Matt Ingalls, Chris Froh, Richard Worn, and Christopher Jones, for their performance at Summerfest’s Choreographers and Composers Consortium, at McKenna Theater

  • Emily Fox, Nils Frykdahl, Kenji Hayashi, Carla Kihlstedt; Jeannie Mckenzie, Dawn McCarthy, Dan Rathbun, Sten Rudstroem, and Allen Willner for text, sound, and music; Heaven’s Radio (Shinichi Momo Koga, Tanya Calamoneri, and Alan Willner), Inkboat, at Venue 9

  • David Worm and SoVoSó for music; Sans Instruments (Sonya Delwaide), for AXIS Dance Company, at the Alice Arts Center Theatre

VISUAL DESIGN

  • Allen Willner and Mary Lois Hare for visual design, Heaven’s Radio, Inkboat, at Venue 9

  • Matthew Antaky for light and scenic design, East as Center (Ni Ketut Arini/Pandit Chitresh Das/Guru Govindan Kutty), Chitresh Das Dance Company, at ODC Theater

  • Patrick Makuakāne and Patty Ann Farrell for visual design, Stories of the Lehua (Patrick Makuakane), Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu, at the Palace of Fine Arts Theater

  • Alexander V. Nichols for lighting design, entire evening, AXIS at the Alice (AXIS Dance Company), at the Alice Arts Center Theatre

  • Austin Forbord, Sean Riley, and Dave Cerf for video design for House (Austin Forbord and Shelley Trott), Rapt Performance Group, at SomArts Theater

INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE

  • Kara Davis for her entire season; Margaret Jenkins Dance Company at the Herbst Pavilion, Janice Garrett + Dancers at the Cowell Theater, and Kunst-Stoff at ODC Theater and McKenna Theater

  • David Bentley in Conversations (Yannis Adoniou) with Kunst-Stoff during Summerfest at the McKenna Theater

  • Amy Foley for the entire evening, Robert Moses’ Kin home season at the Cowell Theater

  • Brandon “Private” Freeman in Investigating Grace (Brenda Way), in ODC/SF’s home season at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

  • Ledoh in ElsewhereHere (Ledoh), at Noh Space

  • Vladimir Riazantsev in Dance Suite from Saratov, with the Nevá Russian Dance Ensemble at the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, at the Palace of Fine Arts Theater

ENSEMBLE PERFORMANCE

  • Nadia Adame and Jacques Poulin-Denis in Sans Instruments (Sonya Delwaide) with AXIS Dance Company at the Alice Arts Center Theatre

  • Lorena Feijoo and Joan Boada in Don Quixote (Helgi Tomasson and Yuri Possokhov after Petipa) with San Francisco Ballet at the War Memorial Opera House

  • Sally Clawson, Christy Funsch, and Nol Simonse in September for Sale (Stephen Pelton) with Stephen Pelton Dance Theatre at Dance Mission Theater

  • Sean Felt, Gabriel Forestieri, Jesse Howell, and Scott Wells in On the Rebound (Scott Wells) with Scott Wells and Dancers at 848 Community Space

  • Aimee Lam and Lorevic Rivera in Giving Strength to this Fragile Tongue (Manuelito Biag) with SHIFT Physical Theater at Dance Mission Theater

COMPANY PERFORMANCE

  • Diamano Coura West African Dance Company in Wolosodown and Wango (Zakarya Diouf and Naomi Washington) at the Palace of Fine Arts Theater

  • Chitresh Das Dance Company in Pancha Jati (Chitresh Das) at the Cowell Theater

  • Inkboat in Heaven’s Radio (Shinichi Momo Koga and Tanya Calamoneri) at Venue 9

  • Limón Dance Company in Psalm (Jose Limón) at the Cowell Theater

  • ODC/San Francisco in Investigating Grace (Brenda Way) at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

CHOREOGRAPHY

  • Robert Moses, The Soft Sweet Smell of Firm Warm Things, for Robert Moses’ Kin, at the Cowell Theater

  • Shinichi Momo Koga and Tanya Calamoneri, Heaven’s Radio, for Inkboat, at Venue 9

  • Alonzo King, Pas, for AXIS Dance Company, at the Alice Arts Center Theatre

  • Tomi Paasonen, W, for Kunst-Stoff, at ODC Theater

  • Terry Sendgraff, Red Bed, for Motivity Aerial Dance, at the Alice Arts Center Theatre

REVIVAL/RESTAGING/RECONSTRUCTION

  • Carla Maxwell / Limón Dance Company for restaging of Psalm (Jose Limón), at the Cowell Theater

  • Donald McKayle/Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley for restaging of District Storyville (Donald McKayle), at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts

  • Margaret Jenkins, Rinde Eckert, and Kathleen Hermesdorf / Margaret Jenkins Dance Company for revival of Shorebirds Atlantic (Margaret Jenkins and Rinde Eckert), at the Herbst Pavilion

  • Monica Parker/San Francisco Ballet for restaging of Elite Syncopations (Kenneth MacMillan), at the War Memorial Opera House

SPECIAL AWARDS

  • MARGARET JENKINS DANCE COMPANY, Three Decades of Dance
    An extraordinary team of collaborators worked for more than a year to celebrate the work of one of San Francisco’s bedrock choreographers. In April 2003, Margaret Jenkins Dance Company: Three Decades of Dance transformed the vast Herbst Pavilion into a living museum of dance history. Set designer Alexander V. Nichols, poet Michael Palmer, videographer Martin Gould, and sound designer Gregory T. Kuhn created a truly transporting environment to showcase the company’s past. More than 100 former MJDC dancers were contacted to participate, and several veterans performed significant past works during a pre-show. The company’s program presented a new work with an original live score and also restaged MJDC classics not seen in many years, notably bringing writer and performance artist Rinde Eckert back to the stage in the 1988 work Shorebirds Atlantic. The Margaret Jenkins Dance Company retrospective was an absorbing testament to the company’s past and future.

  • CHITRESH DAS, NI KETUT ARINI, and GOVINDAN KUTTY for choreography and performance and MATTHEW ANTAKY for visual design, East as Center, ODC Theater
    In May 2003 three renowned masters of Asian dance—North Indian Kathak dancer Chitresh Das, Balinese dancer Ni Ketut Arini, and South Indian Kathakali dancer P. Govindan Kutty—met on the common ground of the Ramayana, an ancient Sanskrit epic. In East as Center, presented at ODC Theater during Das’s artistic residency, each master portrayed distinct characters in stories excerpted from the Ramayana, with the cast augmented by their disciples. This method of collaboration highlighted the differences between the disciplines while creating a satisfying artistic whole, greatly enhanced by Matthew Antaky’s imaginative lighting and live music by North and South Indian and Balinese musicians.

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

  • MALONGA CASQUELOURD was born in Douala, Cameroon in 1947. As a principal dancer of the National Congolese Dance Company and as a resident choreographer and performer with Le Ballet Diaboua, a Congolese repertory company based in Paris, he attracted an international following. Malonga leaves an impressive legacy of institution-building as the founder of Fua Dia Congo, a nonprofit performing arts company formed in East Palo Alto (1977) and currently based in Oakland; Congolese Dance & Drum Camp, the first and longest running Aftican dance, drum and percussion workshop (1979); and Ballet Kizingu, the youth division of Fua Dia Congo (1994). He co-founded Tanawa, the first professional Congolese Dance Company in New York City (1972), and Diata Diata, an all women’s Congolese drum ensemble (1990). He was instrumental in establishing Everybody’s Creative Arts Center, known today as Citicentre Dance Theatre in downtown Oakland, and the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival. He served on the faculty at many institutions, including New York University, Stanford University, and San Francisco State University, where he taught for 26 years. A pioneer,

    cultural ambassador and visionary leader, Malonga welcomed artists from every continent, challenging all to engage in dialogue and build bridges for cultural exchange. He encouraged the elimination of barriers between continental Africans and African Americans. Malonga died on June 15, 2003. His last projects included Kusum Africa, a dance-theater performance showcasing the collaborative works of African director/choreographers; Malaki Matanga 2003: Congo of Yesterday & Today; and Wa Dia Fua Yiko Dio, a project exploring themes of cultural inheritance and exchange between urban/hip hop culture and traditional Congolese culture, to be completed in the Summer of 2005.

  • LOU HARRISON, one of North America’s most original and influential composers, was best known for his luscious, prolific music for symphony, gamelan and percussion orchestras, chamber ensembles, choral groups and operas. He also composed scores for dancers and played live at dance performances. What is less known was that he danced himself, and would sometimes get up from playing the piano or hitting a gong or drum and get on stage to join the fray.

    He also worked as an accompanist, improvising for dance classes. He later said that learning how to improvise helped him with composing. He started his stage career at the age of two and a half and stole the show as “Buster” in Daddy Long Legs. On the West Coast he appeared as a dancer and/or as an accompanist and composer for/with Bella Lewitsky, Marian Van Tuyl, Tina Flade, Carol Beals, Lenore Peters Job, Bernice van Gelder, Bodil Genkel, Louise Kloepper, Bonnie Bird, Lorie Kranzer, Tandy Beal, and Eva Soltes. In New York, he wrote music for Katherine Litz, Jean Erdman, Erick Hawkins, Merce Cunningham, Mark Morris, and Remy Charlip.

    Lou Harrison was also a skilled painter, calligrapher, type designer, essayist, critic, poet, teacher, instrument builder, and political activist. He championed causes ranging through gay rights, pacifism, environmental and ecological, the use of Esperanto, and the sign language of deaf people. He taught a course entitled “Music of the World’s People” furthering the study of multi-cultural sources, which has changed what and how we hear today beyond Euro-centric music. In his early years he loved to go to the Chinese Opera. His piece for Michael Tilson Thomas’s debut with the San Francisco Symphony, A Parade for MTT, was influenced by Harrison’s love for San Francisco’s Chinese New Year’s Day Parade. He enlivened the range of musical instruments by his playful use of found objects. He learned Labanotation so he could help choreographers remember what they did from rehearsal to rehearsal. He said, “If you work with dancers, you must learn to dance.”