The Dance Champion Award was created by Boston Dance Alliance to recognize those who have contributed greatly to the Boston dance landscape, and whose body of work has and will continue to constitute a significant legacy.
2011 - Adrienne Hawkins
2010 - Amy Zell Ellsworth
2009 - Marcus Schulkind
2008 - Jeannette Neill
2007 - Marianne Taylor
2006 - De Ama Battle
2005 - Iris Fanger
2004 - Jeanne Hays BeamanNominate the next Dance Champion for 2012!
2011
This season, the BDA Gala Committee is pleased to be awarding the 2011 Dance Champion Award to Ms. Adrienne Hawkins. The committee is delighted to be honoring such a vibrant and energetic icon in Boston’s dance community. As jazz dancer, Ms. Hawkins is most known in town for her work as Artistic Director of Impulse Dance Company of Boston, for over thirty years. She holds a BA in Education from Arizona State University and a MFA in Dance from Connecticut College. She is also co-artistic director of Bass Line-Motion, a Boston-based music theater, poetry and dance group exploring spirituality, identity & social issues.
Ms. Hawkins has won numerous choreography grants and has set choreography on the National Ballet of Iceland Repertory, Ballet Plus (Denmark), Dance Express (Denmark) Northwest Florida Ballet, Portland Ballet, Rainbow Tribe and over 70 works on Impulse Dance Company. Ms. Hawkins has taught at The Harvard summer Dance Program and The American Dance Festival in Connecticut, North Carolina and Japan. She has been a guest Artist at numerous Colleges in the US including Harvard, Mt. Holyoke, UMass Amherst, The Boston Conservatory, Boston University, Connecticut College, Stonehill College, The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and Dean College. She presently teaches at Boston Ballet, Codman Academy Charter High School, Dancing Arts Center (a performing arts school), The Dance Inn, and Stonehill College.
Her passion for the art form, her mentoring, her teaching, and her lively spirit is an inspiration for many working in the field. Congratulations Adrienne!
2010
As we enter and celebrate our twenty-fifth year, it seems perfect to honor this year’s recipient, Amy Zell Ellsworth. Her contributions as a teacher, choreographer, artistic director, mentor, advocate and philanthropist are remarkable in their breadth. Ms. Ellsworth moved to Boston in 1975 and quickly immersed herself in the dance scene here. She taught at the Institute for Contemporary Dance, Dance Circle, and Lesley College; was a choreographic assistant and danced for Sarah Caldwell’s Boston Opera Company; and performed, choreographed and co-produced concerts with Dorothy Hershkowitz. Together they formed Dancentral where Amy taught classes in technique, repertory and choreographed. Through the mid-eighties, Ms. Ellsworth’s own company Zellsworth Dancers toured New England and New York City, was on the New England Foundation for the Arts Touring Roster and Ms. Ellsworth was awarded three choreographic fellowships from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. After disbanding the company, she continued to teach both in studios and at local universities, performed with Beth Soll, Dances by Isadora, and Daniel McCusker and began her involvement in other aspects of the dance field. She served on the boards of Concert Dance Company, and Revels. In the late 90’s she joined the board of Boston Dance Alliance, became president for 6 years and was instrumental in shaping the future of the organization. Since retiring as an active dancer in 2000, Amy Zell Ellsworth has worked for The Philanthropic Initiative, a nonprofit advisory team that designs, carries out and evaluates philanthropic programs for individual donors, families, foundations, and corporations. Her belief in the art form, her advocating for, mentoring, and financial support of local dance organizations and choreographers, and her incredible dedication to making dance a vital part of greater Boston has been and continues to be an inspiration for many working in the field.
2009
Marcus Schulkind is a founding director of Green Street Studios, one of Boston’s premier venues for dance instruction and performance, and has been dancing, teaching, choreographing, and performing for over thirty-three years. His first foray into Boston was as a master teacher for the Harvard Summer Dance Program. Since moving to Boston in 1985, he has taught throughout the area including Boston Conservatory, Emerson College, and Tufts. The Boston Globe named the Marcus Schulkind Dance Company five times for presenting one of the 10 best dance concerts of the year. He has performed nationally and internationally with many major modern dance companies including Lar Lubovitch, Kathy Posin, and Batsheva Dance Company of Israel. He has taught in the United States, Europe, Canada, and the Middle East. Mr. Schulkind is a nationally recognized dancer, teacher, and choreographer, having received grants from the N.E.A., N.Y.S.C.A., Affiliate Artists Inc., Bank Boston Celebrity Series, and First Night. He has choreographed for Dennis Wayne’s Company, Princeton Ballet, Elisa Monte, 5 by 2 Plus, amongst others. In addition to all of this Marcus Schulkind is a practicing acupuncturist.Click Here to read Iris Fanger's interview with Marcus Schulkind
2008
Jeannette Neill is a native of Massachusetts, raised in Braintree. She began dancing at the age of three and has not stopped since. Jeannette’s passion for dance has led her to embrace all aspects of the art form. A performer, choreographer, teacher, mentor, director, and advocate for all that dance has to offer, she is an enduring and moving force in the Boston dance community. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Jeannette Neill Dance Studio, which has served as a supportive and encouraging training ground for aspiring dancers since 1979. She is Co-Founder and Executive Director of Boston Youth Moves, a pre-professional dance training program for teens in the greater Boston area that provides scholarship subsidies to offset tuition costs. Jeannette has an extensive teaching background, including work at the Boston Conservatory, Walnut Hill School of Performing Arts, and Harvard and Boston Universities. She is an internationally respected educator, dancer, and choreographer whose work has taken her around the globe to the Milan Opera Company in Italy, the AIC Studio in Tokyo, Danschuset in Sweden, the Jazz Tap Festival in Mexico, and the Broadway Dance Center in New York City. As a choreographer, Jeannette has worked with a variety of organizations including ABC-TV, Digital, IBM, Puma, SKYR, Bose, Hasbro, Citicorp, and The Jeannette Neill Dancers. She has also performed as a guest artist for various stage productions including New Directions in Tap starring Gregory Hines, and JAZZDANCE: The Danny Buraczeski Dance Company. In 2000, Jeannette was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Big Sister Association of Greater Boston, making her the first person in the performing arts to be so recognized. Most importantly, Jeannette’s warmth and enthusiasm have inspired several generations of dancers. Boston and the entire region are the beneficiaries of the dance legacy that Jeannette Neill has created.
2007
Originally from Lansdowne, PA, Dance Champion Marianne Taylor moved to Boston to attend Sargent College, Boston University where she graduated as 1951 class valedictorian with a degree in physical education and a minor in dance. She discovered folk dance – the traditional, participatory social dances of rural and urban ethnic groups around the world -- while teaching PE at Newton North High School in the early 1950s and did not stop studying or teaching until her death in 2008. In 1975 she co-founded the Folk Arts Center of New England and served as its Program Director until 2004. FAC has become the anchor of New England folk dance and music, offering weekly and monthly community folk dances, annual dance and music camps, resource and referral services, a music club, workshops, and special events throughout the year for its more than 550 members and thousands of other participants. Ms. Taylor is regarded as a matriarch of the genre, her warmth and enthusiasm having inspired several generations of dancers. Locally, nationally and internationally, she taught hundreds of school programs, residencies, classes and workshops. She played piano for contra, Scottish and other dances, and sometimes was a contra dance caller. Her influence extends beyond the region. She taught in 19 states and 6 Canadian provinces, and has traveled the world to learn, teach and perform in countries including Scotland, Ireland, Bulgaria, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, France, Japan, and Australia. In turn, she hosted folk dance artists from around the world, here to teach their traditional dances to the New England folk dance community. The renowned Royal Scottish Country Dance Society recognized her work, awarding her a teaching certificate in 1957 and their prestigious Scroll of Honour in 2005. The National Folk Organization honored her with the 2008 Preserving our Heritage Award. Boston and the entire region are the beneficiaries of the dance legacy that Marianne Taylor created over the last 55 years.
2006
De Ama Battle has had an enormous influence on the lives of many youth and adults throughout the Boston area. She is the founder of the Art of Black Dance and Music (ABDM). Created in 1975, ABDM has the goal of presenting and preserving the rich history of African rooted dance, music and folklore. Over the 31 years of ABDM’s life, Ms. Battle has presented the company’s works throughout New England; she has also performed at Jacob’s Pillow, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and in countries around the world, including Kenya for the International Festival of the Arts in Nairobi. Local highlights include performing for Nelson Mandela’s visit to Boston in 1990 and participating in Boston Symphony Orchestra Youth Concerts. Along with performing, ABDM is dedicated to teaching. Its dynamic group of professional educators has delivered a rich repertoire of Africa-rooted culture to groups of all ages, races, and ethnic backgrounds.Called “one of Boston’s great treasures” by the artists of Sweet Honey in the Rock, Ms. Battle continues to teach African dance and music for schools and youth groups throughout the region. Ms. Battle, who is a faculty member at Wellesley College and The Boston Conservatory of Music, holds an honorary doctorate from Mount Ida College.
2005
Iris Fanger has been a key member of the greater Boston dance and arts community for 40 years. In addition to a distinguished career as a theater and dance journalist, critic and historian for local, regional and national media outlets, she served for 18 years as Director of the Harvard Summer Dance Center, which brought nearly 200 students to study dance at Harvard University each year. Dr. Fanger, who holds a Ph.D. from Tufts University, has taught college-level dance, theater, and arts administration courses at prestigious institutions across the region, and is a sought-after lecturer in dance and theater history at universities across the country.Her vast knowledge and experience has helped forge acclaimed exhibitions across the U.S., including ones at the Harvard Theatre Collection, the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art, the Toledo Art Museum, and the Neuberger Art Museum in Purchase, New York. She has been published in numerous arts journals, served as dance editor for the Columbia University Encyclopedia, and has been a research consultant for The Balanchine Foundation.
2004
Jeanne Hays Beaman (born October 7, 1919, San Francisco) began her career in dance as a member of the San Francisco Ballet (1938-40). She studied at the School of American Ballet and with Martha Graham in New York in 1936, attended the Bennington School of Dance in 1938, and on the West Coast she studied with Adolph Bolm, Willam Christensen, May O'Donnell and José Limón. In 1942 she received an M.A. in Physical Education at Mills College. Beaman choreographed for the Redlands Bowl in California (1953-55) and created three specials, shown nationally on public television, for Pittsburgh's WQED. In the 1960s she was making some of the first computer dances. Beaman is Professor Emerita at the University of Pittsburgh, where she taught from 1961-1974. She was a founder of the American College Dance Festival Association and the Pittsburgh Dance Council. After moving to Massachusetts in 1974, Beaman became Dance Coordinator of the Massachusetts Arts and Humanities Foundation (1975-78). From 1979 to 1982 she was a dance evaluator for the New England Foundation for the Arts. She served as a member of the Massachusetts Cultural Council from 1986-1992. Jeanne Beaman received the Dance Alliance's Dance Champion Award in 2004.
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