Sage also means wise

Editorial

The 2015 Sage Awards were celebrated this Tuesday, October 13 at the Cowles Center. See the full list of winners below.

We thought we'd take you back to what we reported about at least two of the winners at the time. First, we were fortunate enough to get video of the unique work that Brownbody is producing (Winner Outstanding Dance Performance)--on ice no less! Kudos to Adia Morris for bringing it to your attention first.

Brownbody - Quiet As It's Kept from Minnesota Playlist on Vimeo.

Second, at the RIght Here Showcase, I took in Gadu's piece Fu-Ku-Shi-Ma (Winner, Outstanding Dance Ensemble). Here's what said at the time:

Let me start with what I liked most: Gadu’s piece had stunning visuals and an intense focus that put a anxious but exciting squeeze on my heart and then gracefully let go. There was a noticeably satisfied exhale from the audience at the end. Gadu’s performance background is in Butoh, a tradition I don’t know much about, but I’m told that it has something to do with pace and where weight is distributed in a performer. I suspect this training then was directly responsible for the effect of the imagery—he or his two collaborators (Masanari Kawahara, Dustin Maxwell) allowing you plenty of time to take in the odd position their body was poised in and the surprisingly effective connotations of that imagery. The final image—Gadu standing along onstage, covered in mud, mud dripping off him into a large pool on stage, basically naked, holding a doll in his arms, looking stunned—struck me as a universally compelling and tragic image of the human in the face of nature’s power to destroy.. . . Read the whole article.

The complete list:

Outstanding Dance Performance (2 Awards for the creator(s) of a show, a work or piece of choreography) Lost Voices in Jazz: The Choreographers of the Minnesota Jazz Dance Company – Karla Grotting and The Eclectic Edge Ensemble Quiet As It’s Kept – Brownbody Outstanding Dance Performer (2 Awards for a single dancer, dancers in an ensemble or a group) Shohei Iwahama – James Sewell Ballet Fall and Spring Concerts, Suspicious Fisherman (Jane Weiner) Chitra Vairavan – Neel: Blutopias of Radical Dreaming and Aahvaan: Invoking the Cities (Ananya Dance Theatre), Every Other (Aniccha Arts) Outstanding Dance Ensemble (1 Award for an ensemble or group of any size) Nenkin Butoh Dan in Fu-Ku-Shi-Ma – Gadu DouShin, Dustin Maxwell, Masanari Kawahara Outstanding Design (2 Awards for an artist or group of artists in the areas of costume design, lighting design, music composition, sound design, set design, film, video or installation) Set, Sound, Lighting and Video Design for Soft Fences – Megan Mayer, Elliott Durko Lynch, Heidi Eckwall, Kevin Obsatz, Matt Regan, Xopher Smith Overall Design for Test Pilot – Penelope Freeh, Jocelyn Hagen, Stephanie Fellner, Lynn Farrington, J. Anthony Allen, Jack Dant, Kevin A. Jones, Justin Schell Outstanding Dance Educator (1 Award for a dance educator/teacher for their commitment and accomplishment in the field of dance education) Ananya Chatterjea Special Citation (1 Award for anyone who has a strong connection to the field of dance in Minnesota, including past efforts or work from past seasons) Lisa First and Link Vostok

 

Alan M. Berks

Alan M. Berks is a Minneapolis-based writer whose plays have been seen in New York, Chicago, Phoenix, Indianapolis, San Francisco, and around the Twin Cities. He helped create Thirst Theater a while back. Now, he’s the co-founder of this here magazine. He’s also written Almost Exactly Like Us, How to Cheat, 3 Parts Dead, Goats, and more.