On Bessies Night, Casting a Wide Net Over New York Dance

NEW YORK — A life in dance offers few material rewards, especially for noncommercial artists working outside of major companies. Audiences are small and engagements short; two years of rehearsals might end in three nights of performance. And money? Not a motivator. As choreographer Merce Cunningham once said of dancing, “It gives you nothing back,” only “that single fleeting moment when you feel alive.”

So while the Bessies, or New York Dance and Performance Awards, are perhaps the lowest-profile awards show in the performing arts, the recognition they bestow is vital to the artists in the field. That was joyfully clear during the 34th awards ceremony on Monday, as choreographers, performers, designers and dance supporters came together to celebrate one another at NYU’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.

Hosted by tap artist Ayodele Casel and pop performer Shernita Anderson, the ceremony cast a wide net, with four winners (out of 12 nominees) in each of two main categories: outstanding performer and outstanding production.

The outstanding performer awards went to Germaine Acogny for her solo “Mon élue noire (My Black Chosen One): Sacre #2”; Courtney Cook for sustained achievement with Urban Bush Women, and with Maria Bauman and Marguerite Hemmings; Elizabeth DeMent for her role in Big Dance Theater’s “17C”; and Sara Mearns for sustained achievement with New York City Ballet and various artists.

Mearns thanked Judy Hussie-Taylor, the executive director of Danspace Project, for getting her out of her “ballerina bubble” by connecting her with Jodi Melnick, a contemporary choreographer.

“She’s just god to me,” Mearns said of Melnick.

The outstanding production winners were Nami Yamamoto for “Headless Wolf,” Geoff Sobelle for “HOME,” David Thomson for “he his own mythical beast” and Marjani Forté-Saunders for “Memoirs of a ... Unicorn.”

In accepting her award, Forté-Saunders knelt and raised a fist in the air. Her remarks embodied one of the night’s themes: That no one makes it alone. “I’m part of a lineage,” she said.

The program also featured stirring performances by Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards; Kitty Lunn; Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Jacquelin Harris; and this year’s Bessie-anointed “breakout choreographer,” Mariana Valencia. The highlight of a first-time parade saluting costume design for dance was its cheeky emcee, Taylor Mac.

The 83-year-old choreographer Simone Forti accepted the lifetime achievement award via poetic video message, after the performance of an excerpt from the quietly playful “Thick as Thebes,” created in 1978 by Pooh Kaye, who danced with Forti in the ‘70s.