Best in shows: MoCo’s top dancers at Metro⁄DC Dance Awards

Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2005

Click here to enlarge this photo Kevin Kennefick The faces — and bodies — of dance in Montgomery County: Dancers with Liz Lerman Dance Exchange perform ‘‘Genome” . Click here to enlarge this photo Bethesda Urban Partnership

‘‘It’s like the Oscars,” says Johanna Seltzer, chair of the selection committee for the Metro⁄DC Dance Awards. ‘‘It’s a real galvanizing event to celebrate the dance community and bring dancers and the public together.

‘‘This is the one opportunity during the year when people come together for a cause.”

That cause — the event’s Web site (www.metro-dance-dc.org) says its objective is to celebrate both the excellence of the D.C. dance community and its diversity — is served by public awareness and participation. And the Metro⁄DC Dance Awards will be an evening of statues, speeches, suspense — and more.

‘‘Much like an award show on TV, the awards are interspersed with performances from last year’s winners,” explains Seltzer, a Bethesda native who first became serious about dance as a Thomas W. Pyle Middle School seventh-grader. ‘‘It’s an award show and a dance concert — and the winners aren’t announced until that evening. No one involved in the awards even knows who the winners are right now.”

Among the finalists, however, are some of Montgomery County’s finest dancers, schools and companies: Takoma Park-based Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and Joy of Motion in Bethesda are up for awards and Silver Spring lighting designer Catherine Eliot has three nominations. Last February’s Dance Bethesda festival is a nominee for Outstanding Overall Production in a Small Venue, and Beth Davis of Rockville will receive the Alan M. Kriegsman Award for lifetime achievement and service. It’s the fifth annual Metro⁄DC Awards, and MoCo is well represented.

Big in Japan

It sounds like a cliché, but Peter DiMuro, artistic director at Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, is happy to just be nominated.

‘‘We’re kind of known better outside of town,” he observes, and that’s partly true. The intergenerational modern dance company works across the country and around the world — with a current project in Japan.

‘‘It’s a site specific tour,” he explains, ‘‘and we’re mixing the company with guests, a company from Japan [comprised of] housewives who make kimonos!”

Dance is all about looking forward, and DiMuro is eager to talk about what’s new at Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. But the Metro⁄DC Dance Awards is a look back — at what dance in D.C. has done right during the past year.

The awards, he says, ‘‘do a lot of good for the arts community itself — we can get to know each other, gather in a festive room — and show that dance is a thriving community in D.C.”

It thrives because companies like his aren’t afraid to push the envelope. A finalist in the Outstanding Group Performance in a Dance Production category for a May performance at the Hirshhorn Museum, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange will perform something out of the ordinary at Monday’s gala as well.

The audience will ‘‘see something totally different,” DiMuro says, ‘‘a preview of Liz’s work ‘Ferocious Beauty: Genome.’

‘‘We figured we’d do a little slice of this — a nice slice of dance life in D.C.”

The goal, he says, isn’t just to win an award or bask in last year’s glory. DiMuro plans to showcase what his company — and the D.C. dance community — does best.

‘‘We’re very diverse,” he observes. ‘‘And that’s good. People will see such a wide array [of dance styles]. They’ll have to say, ‘Ooh, I like that. I want to see some more!’”

Steps forward

For Johanna Seltzer, the circle of D.C. dance is especially tight. Her mother was a dancer and dance teacher working with Polish-born dance legend Pola Nirenska. Among Monday evening’s 13 awards is the Pola Nirenska Award, which the Washington Performing Arts Society will give to a noted performer, choreographer and mentor to area dancers.

‘‘The legacy just goes on,” Seltzer says.

One reason it does is Naima Prevots of Bethesda, professor emerita at American University (AU), a past recipient of the Pola Nirenska Award who is a nominee for this year’s Outstanding Achievement in Dance Education.

‘‘I think the Washington dance community is marvelous,” says the Brooklyn-born Prevots. ‘‘Everyone is so warm, so welcoming and so sharing. It’s gotten more diverse, more sophisticated. To be honored by this community is very special. I value [these] people so much.”

This community she values is one she has helped shape. Prevots — who had Seltzer’s mother as a student at AU — is a dance pioneer with a doctorate in performance theory from the University of Southern California as well as a master’s in dance from the University of Wisconsin and a bachelor of arts from Brooklyn College.

She stresses the importance of the arts in everyone’s life.

‘‘The arts are a way of seeing the world,” she says, ‘‘lifelong tools for people. If we develop them in children, they can explore the world in endless ways.”

Prevots is pleased with the dance concert aspect of the Metro⁄DC Dance Awards and delighted with the egalitarian nature of the awards themselves.

‘‘The arts are tough; they tend to be competitive,” she says. ‘‘This process is incredibly fair and open. Everybody votes, and anybody can get nominated.”

Anybody with enough talent, dedication and skill, that is. Seltzer says the process starts with public nominations on downloadable online forms available more than a year before the awards — nominations for the 2006 Metro⁄DC Dance Awards started in early June.

‘‘It’s open to the public,” says Seltzer. ‘‘If [people] see something they like at the awards show, they can nominate that company.”

Dance lessons

Helen Hayes of Gaithersburg is the program coordinator for Joy of Motion Youth Dance Intensive Program, which is a nominee for Outstanding Youth Performance. But the Montgomery County native — she studied dance at Thomas S. Wootton High School before earning a bachelor of arts in dance from the University of Maryland — treasures some things beyond awards.

‘‘There’s a purpose and a reason for everybody to be on this earth,” says Hayes. ‘‘My purpose is to be a dance educator. I didn’t choose it; it chose me. It’s my passion, my destiny.”

She understands dance has both an artistic and a business side, and knows that winning awards and building a resume are important. But her life, and her art, is about building what is intangible.

‘‘A resume is about big landmarks,” she says, ‘‘but it is every moment between those events that my life as a dance educator is all about: a group of beginners dancing with such purity it bring tears to my eyes ... a student trying and trying and finally executing a perfect pirouette. It’s those moments that make it magic for me.”

That said, just being nominated for an award like this ‘‘is a thrill for me and my students,” Hayes says. ‘‘But I’ve already won — every time I walk into the classroom.”

Joy of Motion executive director Doug Yeuell feels the same way, particularly about Dance Bethesda, the all-around-the-town festival of dance he helped put together last winter.

‘‘Dance Bethesda spotlighted dance studios,” says Yeuell. ‘‘Because of that — and because of its success — it was looked on very highly.”

And just as Dance Bethesda was an opportunity to recognize the dance community in just one town, the Metro⁄DC Dance Awards is an opportunity to recognize the D.C., Virginia and Maryland dance community.

‘‘There’s always talk about D.C. being the stepchild to other larger cities,” he says. ‘‘We want people to see how wonderful dance is in this area. You need not look further than your own backyard.”

A little further, perhaps, but just down to the Kennedy Center, which is where the awards show takes place. Then there’s a reception — free for ticket holders — at the Watergate Hotel, kind of a meet and greet for performers, honorees and the general public. It’s the after-party, if you will, not for the Oscars, the Grammys or the Emmys, but for something special in and of itself.

The 2005 Metro⁄DC Dance Awards will be held at 7:30 p.m. Monday in the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, 2700 F St., N.W., D.C. Tickets are $25, $10 for artists. Call 202-467-4600.