ISADORA DUNCAN DANCE AWARDS COMMITTEE ANNOUNCES HONOREES FOR 2019-20 PERFORMANCE SEASON
San Francisco, California, July 2023 - The Isadora Duncan Dance Awards Committee announces the “Izzie” honorees for the 2019-2020 performance season, a viewing year cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The following is a list of Honorees in Special Achievement and Sustained Achievement for 2019-2020. Please note that for the 2019-2020 performance viewing season Izzie Awards were only bestowed for the categories of Special Achievement and Sustained Achievement. No awards were given out for the remaining seven (7) performance categories.
Special Achievement Award Honorees
● Amerikkka is Burning Ball, Lake Merritt Amphitheater, Oakland, CA; August 30, 2020, (height of the COVID-19 pandemic); for producing an outdoor all-ages House/ballroom vogue event for queer and trans-youth addressing the racial reckoning following the murder of George Floyd. In each category of performance, competitors were asked to show their “resourcefulness, ingenuity, and creativity focused on protection and survival from the rona or police brutality.” Political and health education was woven throughout the event’s design. With a virtual broadcast as lit as the in-person experience, this function safely, and powerfully occupied public space.
● Dancing Round Race: Gerald Casel, Sammay Dizon, Yayoi Kambara, and Raissa Simpson for conceiving and creating “Dancing Around Race: Interrogating Whiteness in Dance”, February 15, 2020 at the Asian Art Museum. The event which interrogated the dynamics of equity in performance, specifically how the structures and systems of dance presentation are affected by race. The presentation included site-specific performances around the museum, as well as a talk by Casel, the culmination of his yearlong community engagement residency Dancing Around Race.
● ABD/Skywatchers is recognized for its deep durational, relational work in the Tenderloin community and for creating an influential piece of social justice performance with Came Here to Live: Resilience and Resistance in the Containment Zone. Through this work, presented November 22-24, 2019 at CounterPulse in San Francisco, the Skywatchers Ensemble has co-created work that is of, by, and for not only Tenderloin residents, but all who are directly and indirectly affected by the criminalization of poverty. Importantly, they do this work while engendering an understanding of our shared humanity and lifting up the abundant beauty, brilliance, wisdom, and love of marginalized people.
● Surabhi Bharadwaj is recognized for her creation and performance of Ashrutam: The Unheard Voice, a dance-theater production paying tribute to the hereditary artists who played a pivotal role in cultivating the Indian performing arts. Performed on November 1 – 3, 2019 at ODC Theater, the production highlighted the history of Devadasis (a matriarchal community of progressive and independent women of ancient India who devoted their life to music and dance) and drew parallels to the voice of women of all generations who have fought for their rights, freedom, and equality. Recognized for its strong production values, outstanding performance and for shedding light on this historically important community.
Sustained Achievement Award Honorees
● Alma del Tango, for championing Argentine Tango through classes, performances, and dances and thus creating a vibrant partner-dance community in Marin County and beyond for more than twenty-five years, since its founding in 1996.
● Betsy Erickson, for her numerous contributions to the ballet community in the Bay Area as a dancer with San Francisco Ballet from 1964-84; a ballet master and choreographer for Oakland Ballet, and her role as ballet master of San Francisco Ballet since 1992 where as a central member of the artistic team, Erickson spent 28 years staging ballets and rehearsing hundreds of SF Ballet dancers.
● David McCauley for his nineteen years (2001-2020) of dedication and exemplary leadership as Director of the Berkeley/Oakland AileyCamp, where he has served as a director, choreographer, dance teacher and mentor. David McCauley was a highly regarded role-model and helped to develop self-esteem, self-discipline, creative expression and critical thinking skills for hundreds of East Bay young people.
● Farah Yasmeen Shaikh, Kathak dancer and choreographer, for her conception, choreography and enthralling performance of "The Forgotten Empress" in San Jose and San Francisco in March of 2020, which demonstrated her high artistic values, and comprehensive study of the Kathak dance, over the past 25 years, in the Bay Area.
● George Mizrahi Jackson on the occasion of being deemed “Iconic” by the House Ball Community and being named the international director of The House of Mizrahi and recognized as the Overall “Father” for the organization. In recognition of Jackson's authentic connections with these communities and his work as the Executive Director of AIDS Project of the East Bay.
● Los Lupeños Dance Company of San José, founded in 1969, for over fifty years of presenting the intricacy, depth, costuming, and traditions of Mexican folk dance. Los Lupeños has been training children, youth and adults in its traditional dance style for many years while consistently performing and engaging in communities in San José and beyond.
● Miko Thomas / Landa Lakes, for her leadership in the Native Drag and Two-Spirit community over the past decade. She is recognized for forming the first Native drag house in the Bay Area, the Brush Arbor Gurlz, and her ongoing contributions as the protocol director of the Two-Spirits Powwow since its founding in 2011.
● Robert Moses’ KIN, for twenty-eight years of artistic excellence as an internationally recognized contemporary dance company under the leadership of artistic director Robert Moses. With a repertory of over 100 works, an extensive roster of collaborations with artists in a wide range of disciplines, and a growing catalogue of original text and sound scores composed by Robert Moses, RMK uses movement as a medium through which race, class, culture and gender are used to voice the existence of our greater potential and unfulfilled possibilities.
● Sahiyar Dance Troupe, for spreading Gujarati culture through the traditional folk dance form of Garba since 1994. Preserving the tradition of this community dance form and bringing it to stage.
● San Francisco Ballet Dance in Schools and Communities (DISC), for forty years of service and partnership with San Francisco Unified School District leading classical and folklorico dance enrichment programs in more than one hundred classrooms each year. Offering scholarships for continued study at San Francisco Ballet’s School to sixty new students recruited annually from the DISC program.
● Zaccho Dance Theatre, in recognition of its fortieth anniversary (founded in 1980) as a creative innovator and instigator and the twentieth anniversary of its education-based Zaccho Youth Program (launched 2002). Zaccho is an essential part of Bayview Hunters Point district of San Francisco, where it is the only non-profit dance organization. The company's arts education program serves 100-150 children annually, offering free in-school and after-school classes, and performance opportunities.
● Zak Diouf and Naomi Diouf, for forty-five years as leaders of West African dance company Diamano Coura. Under their leadership and through ongoing workshops, performances, youth programs, community outreach, and creative partnerships Diamona Coura has nurtured generations of Bay Area dancers and served as cultural ambassadors by touring their West African dance performances to audiences in Europe, Asia and the Americas, furthering the preservation, education, and appreciation of traditional West African music, theater, and culture.
History of the Isadora Duncan Dance Awards
The Isadora Duncan Dance Awards, informally known as the Izzie Awards, are awarded annually to acknowledge exceptional achievements in the performance and presentation of dance. Awards are given in nine categories to honor the dancers, choreographers, designers, composers, dance companies, scholars and other individuals who have made important contributions to the Bay Area’s thriving dance community and to celebrate the excellence and diversity of dance in the greater San Francisco Bay Area.
The wholly volunteer Isadora Duncan Dance Awards Committee was established in 1984 and bestowed its first awards in 1985. The Committee is made up of artists, teachers, dance writers, academics and arts administrators with diverse areas of expertise and a willingness to commit to viewing a broad range of work.
During each 12-month performance cycle, running September 1-August 31, the Committee collectively views hundreds of eligible performances each year. The final nominees are selected at an annual voting meeting held in September after the close of the viewing cycle.
Prior to the 2020 pandemic, dance films and videos of performances were not considered eligible for consideration. Since 2020, videotaped content has been considered eligible, provided the artists and the filming location are Bay Area-based.
Member profiles and lists of previous nominees and winners are available online at www.izzies-sf.org.
The Izzies Committee is supported in part through grants, in-kind donations, and annual giving by individuals.
For additional information, contact: izziespublicity@gmail.com
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