Did anyone else attend the Dance Magazine awards last night? I did and was pleasantly surprised at the "show," which I feared would be overblown and pretentious. The awardees included the late Todd Bolender, Gelsey Kirkland, and David Howard, with videos and performances. (The other non-ballet awardees were Eiko and Koma and Joan Myers Brown.) The video presentation for Bolender included great pictures and text about his early life; Suki Schorer presented the award (reading a statement by Jacques D'Amboise about Bolender as a dancer--very interesting!) and Bill Whitener accepted the award on Bolender's behalf. Dancers from the Kansas City Ballet danced a silly pas de deux from Bolender's Souveniers; I wished they had danced from his Still Point instead.

David Howard was introduced by Natalia Makarova who charmed the audience even though she was COMPLETELY unprepared to speak. Howard was elegant, eloquent, and terse; I came away, though, wanting to know more about his life. His award was preceeded by Yuriko Kajiya and Jared Matthews from ABT (and his students) dancing the adagio from Act 3 of Coppelia.

The high point of the evening, as you can imagine, was Gelsey. Never content to rest on her laurels (represented in the amazing video footage--more about that later--and the sheer novelty of her presence), she delivered a carefully worded and moving speech, breaking several times in tears. Victor Barbee presented her award. The footage of her dancing, from Theme, Romeo, and Giselle, was both amazing and infuriating: while the clips from Theme and Romeo were professionally done the clip from Giselle was a bootleg, no music except for an added piano soundtrack. That infuriated me b/c it reflects the sometimes sad state of documentation in our field--that great dance performances in the established repertory are only furtively captured while other performing arts performances are exaustively recorded.

Needless to say, though, I was happy to see this clip, of Giselle's variation from Act I, which drew gasps from the audience. It wasn't like watching an old ballet film and saying (perhaps only to yourself) "OK she was good but dancers today are so much better"; I can't imagine anyone today performing those steps better than she did.

I'd love to hear what other attendees thought.

Many thanks for the great summary and moving account of Kirkland's appearance.

Wow, I am SO grateful to you for that report.

re: kirkland - the presenter was kevin mckenzie, who spoke off-the-cuff but to the point, more or less noting the rough road kirkland had as her own most rigorous 'critic' and how she was now back to his great relief at ABT.
if barbee was there he wasn't on stage so far as i could tell.
[i've scanned and posted the program's page w/ the citation for kirkland, see below.]
there was a little confusion in the bolender tribute when eugene loring was mistaken said to be the choreographer of FILLING STATION.
and one attendee said he thought fonteyn referred to in david howard's remarks as 'margaret fonteyn'
bolender's presenter was a text, wittily written by j.d'amboise and read happily by suki shorer.
makarova also spoke without any notes, she was obviously moved by the work she was able to do once she came to the US with invaluable help from david howard's classes.
allegra kent was in the audience.
so was michael kaiser.
and of course many others whom one could not see if one wasn't in their part of the auditorium.
not all stayed for the reception. i didn't.

anyone know of a link to a photo of gelsey at the royal as aurora in 1986? i think there were some pictures by leslie spatt in her 2nd book? but wondered if anyone knew of one on line.

Thanks for the correction, rg; of course it was McKenzie. I don't know why I thought of Barbee as I sat down to write; same generation as McKenzie, I guess.

There were very few NYCB people there whom I recognized--and I *did* stop into the reception, briefly.