The New York Dance and Performance Awards, The Bessies

The New York Dance and Performance Awards, The Bessies Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from The New York Dance and Performance Awards, The Bessies, Nonprofit Organization, 161A Chrystie St, New York, NY.

02/27/2026

We’re not done celebrating one of last year’s exceptional artists. ✨

The 2025 Outstanding Choreographer/Creator Bessie Award goes to Yoko Murakami 👏🏼

Yoko Murakami is a Tokyo-born and New York City-based artist. She creates movement-based work in forms of site-specific installations and experimental film. Her multi-disciplinary approach to performance spans collaborations in motion-capture technology, installation art, and wearable art where she continues to explore new ways to activate and question the way we interact with our environments. She has presented her creations in spaces like Mabou Mines (New York, NY), Ace Hotel (New York, NY), Triskelion Arts (Brooklyn, NY), Theaterlab (New York, NY), Da Da Da Gallery (Seattle, WA), Eshk Salon / Room Salon (Brooklyn, NY), and Aileyan Accessories (Brooklyn, NY). Her venture into experimental film has led to her works being selected and screened in festivals in Seoul, Moscow, Naples, Belfort, Cyprus, Mexico City, and Lincoln Center in NYC. Yoko is a recipient of the 2025 NYSCA grant and has served as a Bessies Award Selection Committee in 2022-2024.

🎤✨ Hear the acceptance speech in the reel.

📸 Photo Credit: Steven Pisano

02/13/2026

We’re not done celebrating one of last year’s exceptional artists. ✨

The 2025 Outstanding Choreographer Bessie Award goes to Lar Lubovitch 👏🏼

Lar Lubovitch founded Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in 1968, has created over 120 dances with it and toured worldwide with it. Many other major companies also perform his dances, including Othello - A Dance in Three Acts, created with ABT and SF Ballet and featured on PBS’s “Great Performances” (Emmy nom.). Dances on film & television: Fandango (International Emmy), My Funny Valentine for Robert Altman film The Company (American Choreography Award nom.), Concerto Six Twenty-Two and North Star for BBC. Ice-dances for Olympic skaters & TV specials: The Sleeping Beauty On Ice (PBS), The Planets On Ice (A&E) (Int’l. Emmy nom., Cable Ace Award, Grammy Award). Broadway: Into the Woods (Tony nom.), The Red Shoes (Astaire Award) and Tony Award-winning revival of The King and I. 1987: conceived Dancing for Life, dance community’s first response to AIDS crisis. 2007: founded Chicago Dancing Festival (10 years of free performances by leading American dance companies). 2016: premiered The Bronze Horseman, at the Mikhailovsky Ballet (St. Petersburg, Russia). Recent awards: Chicagoan of the Year (Chicago Tribune) & (Chicago Magazine); Ford Fellow (US Artists); Dance/USA Honors; Prix Benois de la Danse for Choreography (Bolshoi, Moscow); America’s Irreplaceable Dance Treasure (Dance Heritage Coalition); Lifetime Achievement awards from American Dance Guild; ADF/Scripps; Dance Magazine; Martha Graham Foundation, Martha Hill Dance Fund. Honorary Doctorates: Juilliard & Boston Conservatory. Since 2018: Distinguished Professor of Dance at UCIrvine.

🎤✨ Hear the acceptance speech in the reel.

📸 Photo Credit: Steven Pisano

02/13/2026

The 2025 Outstanding Choreographer Bessie Award goes to Fredrick Earl Mosley 👏🏼

Fredrick Earl Mosley is an award-winning, internationally recognized arts educator and choreographer, and the Founder and Artistic Director of Earl Mosley’s Diversity of Dance (EMDOD), established in 2006.

Under Mosley’s leadership, EMDOD advances artistic excellence by creating inclusive, affirming spaces where dancers from diverse ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds thrive. Its programs use dance as a tool for empowerment and social change. Earl Mosley’s Institute of the Arts (EMIA) offers rigorous, high-level training through a four-week summer intensive. Hearts of Men, a ten-day workshop, centers men and non-binary/gender-nonconforming artists, addressing identity, visibility, and equity in dance. Dancing Beyond annually unites dancers from high schools, colleges, and professional programs across the tri-state area to support the American Cancer Society through Dance Against Cancer.

Mosley’s honors include Dance Teacher Magazine’s Teacher of the Year (2005), the Martha Hill Fund Mid-Career Award for Excellence (2016), the Elisa Monte Lifetime Achievement Award (2018), and the Maestro title at FINBA (2024), in Cali, Colombia, choreographing a full-length work on 60 international dancers. In 2025, he received the José Limón Foundation Award for Innovation in Education, and in December 2025, presented the world premiere of Embrace which he choreographed on the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

🎤✨ Hear the acceptance speech by in the reel.

02/13/2026

We’re not done celebrating one of last year’s exceptional performers. ✨

The 2025 Outstanding Performer Bessie Award goes to the Cast of CATS: The Jellicle Ball 👏🏼

COME ONE, COME ALL – The Jellicle Cats are having a BALL. Based on T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s worldwide phenomenon CATS is reimagined in a production that smashed records, won awards and left New York City purring. And now CATS: The Jellicle Ball ascends to Broadway in a kaleidoscope of glittering spectacle, iconic music and electrifying ballroom choreography that The New York Times calls “a lightning strike that sets joy free!”

Broadway meets Runway in the fiercest event of the season, directed by Obie Award winners Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch, with choreography by Chita Rivera Award and Obie Award winners and New York City Ballroom icons Omari Wiles (House of NiNa Oricci) and Arturo Lyons (House of Miyake-Mugler). Don’t miss this “sexy celebration of love and resilience” (New York Daily News) and “the most exhilarating fun that can be had in the theater” (The Washington Post).

🎤✨ Hear the acceptance speech in the reel.

📸 Photo Credit: Steven Pisano

02/12/2026

We’re not done celebrating one of last year’s exceptional artists. ✨

The 2025 Outstanding Performer Bessie Award goes to Jake Roxander 👏🏼

Jake Roxander began his formal dance training at the age of seven, studying with his parents until he was 17 years old. During his childhood, Jake took gymnastics, martial arts, voice lessons, and performed in several musical theatre productions in Southern Oregon. He participated in the YAGP, receiving the Youth Grand Prix Award in 2016 and 2017 and the Grand Prix Award in 2018 and 2019. He was awarded full scholarships to Pennsylvania Ballet’s “Company Experience” workshop in 2017 and 2018, and to American Ballet Theatre’s New York Summer Intensive in 2019. Jake joined Pennsylvania Ballet II in 2019. In September 2020, Jake joined ABT Studio Company, became an apprentice with the main Company in May 2022, joined the corps de ballet in September 2022, and was promoted to soloist in March of 2024. His repertoire includes The Cavalier, Harlequin, and the Chinese Lead in The Nutcracker, Benno and Neapolitan Dance in Swan Lake, Peasant Pas de Deux in Giselle, Puck in The Dream, Mercutio in Romeo & Juliet, Lensky in Onegin, Aminta in Sir Frederick Ashton’s Sylvia, Florizel in Christopher Wheldon’s The Winter’s Tale, and leading roles in Etudes and Piano Concerto No. 1.

🎤✨ Hear the acceptance speech in the reel.

📸 Photo Credit: Elyse Roxander

02/06/2026

We’re not done celebrating two of last year’s exceptional artists. ✨

The 2025 Outstanding Performer Bessie Award goes to House of Juicy Couture + House of Telfar 👏🏼

House of Juicy Couture:

Alexis wan baddest.beesha
 
Jayden Benbow

 
Tyreel Simpson

 
Baby Byrne

 
Mateo Roska

 
Nicholas Sterling

 
Shaquill blanding

 
Veyonce Deleon

 
Tyrone Reese .tyrone_
 
House of Telfar:

Dava Huesca 
Omarion Burke .r.burke
Xavier Villafañe 
Travon Williams 
Myles Porter 

🎤✨ Hear the acceptance speech in the reel on behalf of ballroom by and .

📸 Photo Credit: Robin Michals

02/06/2026

We’re not done celebrating one of last year’s exceptional artists. ✨

The 2025 Outstanding Performer Bessie Award goes to Jacquelin Harris 👏🏼

JACQUELIN HARRIS began her dance training at Dance Productions Studios. Harris received a silver ARTS award from the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts. She graduated with honors from the Ailey/Fordham BFA Pro­gram in Dance. In 2016, Harris was named one of “25 to Watch” by Dance Magazine. She received a 2017 dance fellowship from the Princess Grace Foundation-USA. Ms. Har­ris has performed as a guest artist with the Cunningham Trust, Twyla Tharp, Lar Lubovitch, kNoname Artist | Roderick George, and Jamar Roberts in collaboration with Sara Mearns. She was a member of Ailey II and joined the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 2014. She is honored to be recognized alongside such talented creatives.

🎤✨ Hear the acceptance speech in the reel.

📸 Photo Credit: Robin Michals

02/04/2026

We’re not done celebrating one of last year’s exceptional artists. ✨

The 2025 Outstanding Revival Bessie Award goes to Ronald K. Brown 👏🏼

Founder and Artistic Director of Evidence, A Dance Company
Ronald K. Brown, raised in Brooklyn, NY, is a renowned choreographer and cultural leader whose work blends African, modern, ballet, and social dance styles. Brown’s choreography is deeply rooted in spiritual and social themes. He has created work for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, Philadanco, Ballet Hispanico, Mal Paso, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, and more. Brown has also received an AUDELCO Award for his choreography in Regina Taylor’s award-winning play Crowns, two Black Theater Alliance Awards, and a Fred & Adele Astaire Award for Outstanding Choreography in the Tony Award-winning Broadway and national touring production of The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess A recipient of numerous awards including the Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Choreographer Fellowship, Dane Magazine Award, Dance Teacher Magazine Award, ADF Scripps Award among others. Brown continues to shape the contemporary dance landscape with compassion, activism, and authenticity.

🎤✨ Hear the acceptance speech in the reel.

📸 Photo Credit: Robin Michals

02/04/2026

We’re not done celebrating two of last year’s exceptional artists. ✨

The 2025 Outstanding Sound Design or Musical Composition Bessie Award goes to Angie Pittman and Cody Jensen 👏🏼

Angie Pittman is a New York-based Bessie award-winning multidisciplinary performance artist whose choreographic work uses dance, text, and sound. Their work has been performed at The Kitchen, Gibney Dance, BAAD!, Movement Research at Judson Church, Triskelion Arts, STooPS, The Domestic Performance Agency, The KnockDown Center, The Invisible Dog(Catch 73), The Chocolate Factory Theater, Danspace Project, Roulette, Rose Bowl Tavern, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. As a dancer, they have worked for 28 national and international choreographers and artists including work by Larissa Valez-Jackson, MBDance, Tere O’Connor, Anna Sperber, Donna Uchizono Company, and Ralph Lemon. They are currently performing in the work of Cynthia Oliver Dance Theatre and Jasmine Hearn. They are currently an Assistant Arts Professor of Dance at New York University and recently released their first album, Holy Defiance, a pagan gospel blues album that is grounded in the belief that Black resistance is sacred, and acts of defiance are holy.

Cody Jensen is a multi-instrumentalist and composer based in Urbana, Illinois, whose compositions have been featured at venues including Brooklyn Academy of Music and Roulette Intermedium. Jensen is also a touring musician with groups such as Bones Jugs, Chicago Farmer, and Alma Afrobeat Ensemble. He is an active composer in the dance field, including works with choreographers Angie Pittman and Alfonso Cervera. Jensen’s solo albums, banjoboy and Moon Songs, merge electronic and acoustic sounds and reference various folk and jazz traditions. He is currently a candidate for a Master of Music degree in Jazz Performance at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

🎤✨ Hear the acceptance speech in the reel.

📸 Photo Credit: Robin Michals

02/04/2026

We’re not done celebrating one of last year’s exceptional artists. ✨

The 2025 Outstanding Visual Design Bessie Award goes to Clifton Taylor .taylor.design 👏🏼

Clifton Taylor has created designs for Broadway as well as opera, theater, and dance companies around the world. His designs for dance have been commissioned for the repertories of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Royal Ballet (London), Hong Kong Ballet, Dance Theater of Harlem, Rambert (London), Mikhailovsky (Russia), American Ballet Theatre, San Francisco, and Boston Ballets. He has had long and productive professional relationships with many pioneering choreographers, including Lar Lubovitch, Pam Tanowitz, Karole Armitage, and Elisa Monte, among many others. He has been named a “Knight of Illumination” in the UK for his work in dance lighting. His book, “Color & Light,” has become the standard text on color for lighting programs worldwide. Mr. Taylor is a co-founder of the Studio School of Design, a non-profit foundation that provides access to and competence in design careers for all people through in-person and online courses and seminars.

🎤✨ Hear the acceptance speech in the reel.

📸 Photo Credit: Robin Michals

2024

01/30/2026

With the state of the country and the world, The 2024 Lifetime Achievement Bessie Award Honoree Dyane Harvey-Salaam said it best! “We WILL change the world!” 👏

Dyane Harvey-Salaam is an accomplished performing artist, a Bessie Award nominee (2019) and winner (2017), dance educator, choreographer, certified Pilates instructor, and board member of the American Dance Guild. Daughter, Sister, Wife, Mother, and Grandmother, she has performed as a principal soloist with many recognized dance companies and is a founding member and assistant to director Abdel R. Salaam of The Forces of Nature Dance Theatre Company, and wishes to acknowledge with deep gratitude this long relationship.

Having appeared nationally and internationally with concert dance companies including: The Eleo Pomare Dance Company, Joan Miller’s Dance Players, Chuck Davis Dance Company, Walter Nicks Dance Company, Otis Sallid’s New Art Ensemble, George Faison’s Universal Dance Experience, Dance Brazil, and The Repertory Dance Theatre of Trinidad and Tobago, she knows that the values instilled while dancing with these companies have prepared her for a richly satisfying life.

An educator, she continues to teach and design courses at both Princeton and Hofstra Universities, where she shares her philosophy about the dance of life itself.
Ase’ to all who have come before!

🎤✨ Hear the acceptance speech in the reel.

📸 Photo Credit: Robin Michals

01/29/2026

Celebrating one of this year’s exceptional honorees. ✨

The 2024 Outstanding Service to the Field Bessie Award goes to Ballet Tech , led by Artistic Director Dionne Figgins 👏

Led by Artistic Director Dionne Figgins and Executive Director Maggie Christ, Ballet Tech, also known as the NYC Public School for Dance, provides students in grades 4 - 8 with intensive ballet training, augmented with modern dance, tap, jazz, contemporary and choreographic repertory, alongside a rigorous academic curriculum. After creating it in 1974 as a professional company, in 1978 choreographer Eliot Feld reimagined Ballet Tech to offer kids in NYC public schools the early training needed to grow into their fullest potential as dancers. In 1995, Ballet Tech became its own freestanding public school. The student population includes children from all five boroughs and mirrors the diversity of the city’s public school system, and graduates go on to achieve extraordinary success in both the dance world and countless other fields. Ballet Tech has grown dramatically, and in 2025 announced that it is doubling the size of its student body over the next five years.

🎤✨ Hear the acceptance speech in the reel.

📸 **Photo Credit: Steven Pisano

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161A Chrystie St
New York, NY
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