2012 Honors Celebration

• Join Dance/USA at the 2012 Honors Celebration to recognize this year’s recipients of the Honor,  Ernie (named for the late Ian “Ernie” Horvath), Champion, and Trustees Awards.  This extraordinary event, taking place at the the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ Forum, is cause for reflection upon these individuals’ contributions to dance in America and an acknowledgement of the roles they play in the national dance community.

  San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival | 2012 Mayor Honoree

  The largest and most comprehensive event of its kind in North America, the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival annually presents the diverse ethnic dance companies and cultural traditions of the Bay Area. During its rich, 34 year history, the Festival has celebrated and fostered appreciation for the distinct communities in the Bay Area and Northern California, through its performance season of dance styles that have included traditional classical dance, sacred dance genres, vernacular dance forms, social dance and folk dance presentations.

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  Helgi Tomasson | 2012 Dance/USA Honor Honoree

  The Honor goes to an individual who has demonstrated extraordinary leadership in the dance field by reason of artistic excellence and/or force of vision.

  

  Helgi Tomasson was first discovered by Jerome Robbins in his native Iceland and offered a dance scholarship to New York’s School of American Ballet. Subsequently, he began his professional career with The Joffrey Ballet, The Harkness Ballet, and later joined New York City Ballet where he became one of the company’s most celebrated principal dancers.

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  Past Honorees

  1986  Anthony Tudor and Martha Graham
  1988  Robert Joffrey and Merce Cunningham
  1990  Agnes de Mille, Paul Taylor and Alvin Ailey
  1992  Katherine Dunham and Bella Lewitzky
  1994  Alexandra Danilova and Charles Reinhart
  1996  Willam Christensen and Donald McKayle
  1998  Judith Jamison and Bruce Marks
  2000  Jeraldyne Blunden and David R. White
  2002  Chuck Davis
  2004  Arthur Mitchell
  2006  Anna Halprin
  2008  Frederic Franklin
  2009  Tina Ramirez
  2010  Carmen De Lavallade
  2011  Lar Lubovitch

  Sam Miller | 2012 Dance/USA ‘Ernie’ Honoree

  The ‘Ernie’ goes to an individual working “behind the scenes” within the infrastructure of the dance field, whose achievements have significantly empowered artists and supported their creativity individually or as a community.

  
  Sam Miller is President of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC). A devoted advocate for the arts, Sam Miller brings a nationally recognized profile to the organization. Most recently, he spent five years as President of Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC), developing efforts centered on increasing direct support for artists.

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  Past Honorees

  1990  Ian ‘Ernie’ Horvath
  1992  Richard E. LeBlond Jr.
  1994  Martha Hill Davis and Bessie Schoenberg
  1996  Barbara Horgan and Ivan Sygoda
  1998  Deborah Jowitt
  2000  Norton Owen and John R. Killacky
  2002  Cora Cahan
  2004  Sage Cowles
  2006  Madeleine Nichols
  2008  Anna Kisselgoff
  2009  Sali Ann Kriegsman
  2010  Richard J. Caples
  2011  Verdery Roosevelt

  C.C. Conner | 2012 Dance/USA Trustees Honoree

  The Trustees Award is given at the discretion of the Dance/USA Board of Trustees to recognize an outstanding professional whose work has special significance to the field.

  C.C. Conner joined Houston Ballet as Managing Director in 1995 and recently retired from its Foundation on February 15, 2012, which was proclaimed by Houston Mayor Annise Parker as Cecil C. Conner, Jr. Day.  Prior to his tenure, Mr. Conner served as the Executive Director of The Joffrey Ballet in New York City and led the strategic planning process to move The Joffrey to Chicago.

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  Past Honorees

  2004  Alan M. Kriegsman
  2007  Dr. Richard Gibbs
  2008  Rena Shagan
  2011  Andrea Snyder

  Chris & Warren Hellman, and Kary Schulman |  2012 Dance/USA Champion Honorees

  The Champion Award is given to any organization, business, foundation, or individual in the Annual Conference host city whose achievements, leadership, and support have sustained and/or significantly advanced dance in their home community.

  

  Chris and Warren Hellman have shaped the region’s artistic and cultural life for over four decades.  They have served causes and institutions around the country, both actively and philanthropically.

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  For the past 30 years Kary Schulman has been the Director of the Grants for the Arts program of the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, the municipal funding agency for San Francisco’s arts community.   Under her leadership, funding for the agency has grown over six fold, now granting almost $9 million dollars to 220 arts organizations and cultural projects, ranging from ethnic neighborhood celebrations to the San Francisco Opera.

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  Past Honorees

  2010  The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation and the Meyer Foundation
  2011  Pamela Crutchfield

   

   

   

  

   

  Dance/USA is deeply grateful to DeWitt Stern Group for their generous

  sponsorship of the 2012 Honors Celebration.