Bessie Awards

Dance Theater Workshop, colloquially known as DTW, was a New York City performance space and service organization for dance companies that operated from 1965 to 2011. After a merger it became known as New York Live Arts

Bessie Schonberg was a highly influential dancer, choreographer and teacher of the 20th century. She was at the center of contemporary modern dance from her beginning at Bennington College up until her death in 1997. Her career spanned sixty-five years and she helped mold a new generation of modern dancers including Lucinda Childs, Elizabeth Keen, Meredith Monk and Carolyn Adams (dancer).Capturing a sense of the life and work of Bessie Schonberg is possible if one evokes the image of a prism, a multi-face crystalline object which cannot be perceived in its entirety, but can be appreciated and understood by catching glimpses of light from its different sides.

Sarah Lawrence College is a private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York. The college models its approach to education after the Oxford/Cambridge system of one-on-one student-faculty tutorials. A Sarah Lawrence scholarship, particularly in the humanities, performing arts, and writing, places high value on independent study. Originally a women's college, Sarah Lawrence became coeducational in 1968.

Jérôme Bel is a French dancer and choreographer.

Camille A. Brown is a dancer, choreographer, director and dance educator. She is the Founder & Artistic Director of Camille A. Brown & Dancers, and has congruently choreographed commissioned pieces for dance companies, Broadway shows, and universities. Brown started her career as a dancer in Ronald K. Brown’s Evidence, A Dance Company, and was a guest artist with Rennie Harris Puremovement, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Brown has choreographed major Broadway shows such as Choir Boy, Once on This Island and Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert! that aired on NBC. Brown also teaches dance and gives lectures to audiences at various universities such as Long Island University, Barnard College and ACDFA, among others.

Guillermo Gómez-Peña is a Mexican/Chicano performance artist, writer, activist, and educator. Gómez-Peña has created work in multiple media, including performance art, experimental radio, video, photography and installation art. His fifteen books include essays, experimental poetry, performance scripts, photographs and chronicles in both English, Spanish and Spanglish. He is a founding member of the pioneering art collective Border Arts Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo (1985-1992) and artistic director of the performance art troupe La Pocha Nostra.

David Gordon was an American dancer, choreographer, writer, and theatrical director prominent in the world of postmodern dance and performance. Based in New York City, Gordon's work has been seen in major performance venues across the United States, Europe, South America and Japan, and has appeared on television on PBS's Great Performances and Alive TV, and the BBC and Channel 4 in Great Britain.

William Mills Irwin is an American actor, clown, and comedian. He began as a vaudeville-style stage performer and has been noted for his contribution to the renaissance of American circus during the 1970s. He has made a number of appearances on film and television, and he won a Tony Award for his role in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? on Broadway. He is also known as Mr. Noodle on the Sesame Street segment Elmo's World, has appeared in the Sesame Street film short Does Air Move Things?, regularly appeared as Dr. Peter Lindstrom on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and had a recurring role as "The Dick & Jane Killer" on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. From 2017 to 2019, he appeared as Cary Loudermilk on the FX television series Legion.

William Tass Jones, known as Bill T. Jones, is an American choreographer, director, author and dancer. He is the co-founder of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. Jones is Artistic Director of New York Live Arts, the company's home in Manhattan, whose activities encompass an annual presenting season together with allied education programming and services for artists. Independently of New York Live Arts and his dance company, Jones has choreographed for major performing arts ensembles, contributed to Broadway and other theatrical productions, and collaborated on projects with a range of fellow artists. Jones has been called "one of the most notable, recognized modern-dance choreographers and directors of our time."

Carl Hancock Rux is an American poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, recording artist, journalist, curator, social practice installation artist and professor in the Department of Theater at CalArts University. Described in the NY Times as "a breathlessly inventive multimedia artist" focused on "art, race, memory and power",[1] Rux is the author of several books, including the Village Voice Literary Prize-winning collection of poetry, Pagan Operetta, the novel, Asphalt, and the OBIE Award-winning play,Talk and five albums. He appears as a frequent collaborating artist, most notably on Gerald Clayton's album Life Forum[2] and as co-author of the staged incarnation of Steel Hammer by Julia Wolfe, the 2010 Pulitzer Prize-nominated work, created with Anne Bogart.[4] Rux is the author/performer of the Lincoln Center commissioned experimental short poetic film The Baptism, a tribute to civil rights activists John Lewis and C. T. Vivian, directed by Carrie Mae Weems.