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| Twelfth Anniversary: The Puzzle and The Path: New dances to live Music |
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Denver, Colorado — Saturday, October 8, 2005 at 7:30 pm at the Lakewood Cultural Center, the first annual Colorado Dance Awards ceremony was held. This event, years in the making, is a landmark in the history of dance in Colorado. All sectors of the dance community from across the entire state of Colorado were represented in this gala occasion. These awards have been created to recognize outstanding contributions to the field and to continue to unite our diverse and rich dance community. The ceremony opened with a Native American blessing by Jessica Bordeaux-Vigil of the Sigangu Lakota.
Three awards were given:
Cutting Edge was awarded to Frequent Flyers Productions for aerial dance and choreography. Service to the Field was awarded to SPEAKING OF DANCE for Outreach and community building through SOD’s Building Community Through Dance program.
Lifetime Achievement was awarded to Miss Gwen Bowen, a teacher/choreographer/studio owner for over 50 years and founder of Arts for All.
The program featured many of Colorado’s prominent people in the world of dance. Cleo Parker Robinson of Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, David Taylor of David Taylor Dance Theater, Robert Mills of Ballet Nouveau, Janet Johnson of Ormao Dance Company, Katherine Kersten of Vail International Dance Festival, Jim Borzym of American Vernacular Dance, and local dancer and choreographer Greg Gonzales were on hand to present awards. Greg Moody of KCNC Channel 4 News was the moderator; Lisa Wood, Executive Director of the Colorado Dance Alliance greeted the audience, as did special guests Andrea Snyder, Executive Director of Dance/USA and Cheles Rhynes, Founder and Executive Director of the DC Dance Awards. The audience was entertained by performances by students from the Colorado College Dance Department, the Denver School of the Arts, the Viva Mexico Dance School and Christina Yeh Dance Studios.
SPEAKING OF DANCE was selected for the Service to the Field Award from ten nominees and was one of three finalists. The membership of the Colorado Dance Alliance voted for the top three nominees, who were then reviewed by a panel of judges who made the final selection.
SPEAKING OF DANCE’s program, Building Community Through Dance, is a free, intergenerational performance-based program that has served over 1,200 participants since its inception in 1998. Neighborhood residents, ages 7 –77, share personal stories on a variety of themes and join together to make a large collaborative dance every year under the direction of SOD Artistic Director Deborah Reshotko. In the process of making the choreography, the participants learn life skills such as responsibility to self and to a group, effective verbal and non-verbal communication skills, and how to resolve conflicts peacefully. Comments from our participants include: "This class gave me tools that I’ve used for negotiating important decisions with my family." "I felt accepted for who I am and what I can do." "The environment created community with trust and respect; everyone was equal." " I learned that I don’t need to use words to build a relationship with other people." "I learned that 'different' isn't bad—that everyone can have an opinion."
Deborah Reshotko, SOD Artistic Director, is celebrating her 25th year of working as a choreographer and producing original dance works in 2005. She produced her choreography in New York City for nine years where her dances were critically acclaimed (and singled out by Edward Gorey in a cartoon portraying highlights of New York). She then moved to Colorado to pursue a vision of dance in community. She has made over 85 dance works since 1980 and has had her work produced throughout the USA and Canada. In 1993, Deborah founded SPEAKING OF DANCE as a venue for her choreography and for community outreach and development through dance. Deborah has worked in schools and communities as an artist-in-residence for over fifteen years. She has been awarded a “Best of Denver” by Westword and many grants from Colorado organizations and foundations. Deborah has been a featured teaching artist for numerous arts and education institutes, colleges and universities, and she has been a national consultant in education for the last twenty years. She also teaches modern dance technique and improvisation classes for adults. Her choreography has been selected numerous times for the Colorado Choreographers Showcase, and she has been commissioned regularly to make new dance for the Colorado Symphony and the Colorado Performing Arts Festival, as well as the Mizel Museum of Judaica, Rose Medical Center, the Denver Art Museum and the Colorado Historical Society. She has choreographed for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, as well as for numerous other theatre companies in Denver, and she has stage-directed for the Colorado Symphony.