Bard Alumna Joanna Haigood ’79 Honored with Dance Magazine Award
The 2024 Dance Magazine Awards honor Bard alumna Joanna Haigood ’79, alongside George Faison, Liz Lerman, Mavis Staines, Shen Wei, and Mikhail Baryshnikov, whose work with Baryshnikov Arts earned him the Chairman’s Award. From its first year in 1954, the Dance Magazine Awards have been given annually in appreciation of the artistry, integrity, and resilience that dance artists have demonstrated over the course of their careers. The theme for this year’s awards is “the stage and beyond”—the dancers, choreographers, and educators recognized are invested in work that often transcends the proscenium.
“Since 1980 Joanna Haigood has been creating work that uses natural, architectural, and cultural environments as points of departure for movement exploration and narrative,” says the Dance Magazine Awards statement. “Her stages have included grain terminals, a clock tower, the pope’s palace, military forts, and a mile of neighborhood streets in the South Bronx. Her work has been commissioned by many arts institutions, including Dancing in the Streets, Jacob’s Pillow, the Walker Art Center, the National Black Arts Festival, and Festival d’Avignon. Haigood has had the privilege to mentor many extraordinary young artists at the École Nationale des Arts du Cirque, the Trinity Laban Conservatoire, Spelman College, Stanford University, the San Francisco Circus Center, and Zaccho Studio.”
The Aileen Passloff Award for Summer Study (PASS)
The good news is, we have a match! All donations received will be doubled thanks to a generous gift from the Estate of Ellen S. Shukis, whose daughter, Daina Shukis (1950-2022), was in the Class of 1972. The goal is to raise $50,000 to meet the match and endow the fund so that it exists in perpetuity. Thanks to the generosity of faculty, staff, and alumni/ae, we have been able to offer awards to seven students thus far.
With your financial help, each year talented Bard students will be awarded a summer stipend to continue their discovery of the art of dance. With this award, Aileen’s memory will be celebrated every year as young dancers are supported in their growth and maturation as performers. If you would like information about supporting the Passloff Award for Summer Study, please call 845-758-7116.
Joanna Haigood ’79, artistic director of Zaccho Dance Theater (the oldest Black-run dance group in San Francisco), is taking over San Francisco City Hall for The People’s Palace, a show she conceived, choreographed, and is directing. The show is intended to help audiences become aware of “how architectural design can implicitly and explicitly enforce the invisibility of minority populations,” including in civic buildings. Audiences can experience it May 9–12, when multiple performers—from aerialists in the rotunda to dancers on the staircases—will be on site repeating the show. Free admission.
Congratulations to Sam Asa Pratt '14, half of the BAYE & ASA choreography duo, for winning the Harkness Promise Award from Dance magazine, which provides a grant and rehearsal space for innovative young choreographers.
Dancer Roobi Gaskins '19 will make her Houston Grand Opera debut on October 20 in a newly commissioned world premiere, the new American epic INTELLIGENCE, produced in collaboration with the Urban Bush Women.
Baye & Asa create a new work for Martha Graham Dance Company
Baye and Asa Updates
Baye and Asa continue to create amazing work and we are fortunate to be able to share this with you. They're also teaching weekly classes at Gibney Dance on Fridays at noon. Follow this link to learn more:
https://shoutout.wix.com/so/ddOGMKVhv?languageTag=en&cid=eaa07993-8119-401f-a325-ed3fd16a5153#/main
The Making of Hothouse
Dancers and choreographers Sam Pratt ’14—Bard alum and double major in dance and philosophy—and Amadi Washington discuss their new project Hothouse with Maria Simpson, faculty and former director of the Dance Program at Bard College. Amadi and Sam collaborate as the duo Baye & Asa. Hothouse responds to the re-illumination of the country's practice of systemic racism by way of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sakinah Bennett ’21 Cofounds Sister2Sister, a “Sisterhood” Mentoring Project for Women of Color
Sister2Sister was founded in Spring 2018. Although the project was initially based in performing arts, it has evolved into a mentoring project. The objective is to create a sisterhood of women of color; founders Sakinah Bennett ’21 and Skylar Walker ’21 want to become the older sister-like role models they wished they’d had in high school.
Lisa Fagan ’11 Returns to Bard for a January Residency
I and a group of seven multidisciplinary artists began working on a new piece in 2019 called Give it a Go while my collaborator, composer/vocalist Catherine Brookman, and I were artists in residence at Target Margin Theater in Brooklyn, NY. That work was cut short by the pandemic. We are lucky to have received support from the Mental Insight Foundation in the form of $10,000 to continue development on a large-scale collaborative work. The work will move in a new direction after so long away from its original development period, and the group of collaborators is expanding. We are working with an incredibly brilliant company of 13 dancers, musicians, actors, filmmakers, and writers for this new re-imagining of the project (currently untitled). We have also just received a developmental residency and financial support from the new performance incubator Mercury Store in Brooklyn, for the spring. Show dates are currently forthcoming.
Ainesh Madan ’15 – Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan's BangaloreREsidency
I am writing this email from Weltkunstzimmer, where I am graciously being hosted for five weeks, as part of Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan's BangaloreREsidency Expanded program. The work I am creating through the program is inspired by Part 3 of Nietzsche's The Second Dance Song. Here is a video of me keeping up my Cunningham Practice at the WeKuZi studio.
Artmaking in a Pandemic
Featured alumna Olivia Berkey ’20 and what she made for her Senior Project in dance.
“Some Pros Let It Go on TikTok: Is The the Future?” From the New York Times
Emma Lutz-Higgins ’16 and Meghan Herzfeld, Brooklyn roommates and dance collaborators, on their rooftop, rehearsing and recording the J. Lo Super Bowl challenge. “This is about me performing for you, and I don’t have to pretend that I’m not,” Ms. Lutz-Higgins said. “It’s all just out in the open. It’s kind of weirdly liberating.”
Roobi Gaskins ’19 Joins Urban Bush Women as a Company Member
Roobi Gaskins is a NYC-based artist, who specializes in dance, choreography, and garment construction. Although she has always had a passion for dance, she owes her movement genesis, ability, and training to 14 years of competitive figure skating, where she competed internationally as a member of the Puerto Rican national team. Due to injury, she decided to redirect her career path, and began her formal dance training at Bard College, where she received a bachelor of arts in Dance with a focus in Africana Studies. She was an apprentice with Urban Bush Women in 2019–20, and has also performed works with various artists and companies including but not limited to Abby Z and the New Utility (Jacob’s Pillow), Brownbody, Marguerite Hemmings (Baryshnikov Arts Center), 7NMS (New York Live Arts), and Trisha Brown (92nd Street Y).