Awards.

Controversy always seems to surround awards, but their presentation can allow us to pause and consider the things that are important about what we do. This magazine has recognized more than 130 men and women since giving the first Dance Magazine Award in 1954 for "significant career contributions." As New York City's cultural commissioner Schuyler Chapin wrote this year in a letter of congratulations, "the roster of recipients from 1954 to the present reads like a history of dance in America over almost half a century." On April 15, the thirty-ninth edition was presented in New York City to a full house at the Asia Society, an event that reinforced our beliefs in the basic health of our business and the goodness of its people.

I've been involved in the selection and presentation of these awards for more than twenty-five years. The selection process has always been difficult. I have help from a distinguished panel of fellow journalists--Robert Greskovic, John Gruen, Doris Hering, Marilyn Hunt, Hilary Ostlere; Clive Bames was chairman. We met in early winter and considered hundreds of nominations made by the Dance Magazine "family" of editors, writers, and photographer$ from around the world. But, believe me, singling out a few individuals in a field where so many deserve recognition is always a frustrating exercise. Awards in the dance field become a very serious business when there are so few, too few, available. And so I have always tended to see our magazine's awards as being broader in scope than they may appear to be at first--symbolic, in their way. The awards have always been about one segment of the dance family paying homage to another.

Family, in fact, turned out to be the theme of this year's presentation: Gospel singer Yvette Glover presented the award to her son, Broadway tap dancer Savion; dancer Christopher Stowell presented the award to his parents, Francia Russell and Kent Stowell, artistic directors of Pacific Northwest Ballet; the evening's host, Patricia Wilde, was once a celebrated member of New York City Ballet, of which presenter Judith Fugate and recipient Peter Boal are leading dancers today.

There are at least two kinds of family: the biological family into which we are born, and the family we choose for ourselves. It is wonderful when these families are the same--and this year's awards had two heart-warming examples of this--but, I believe it is fair to say, they seldom are. For many reasons.

In dance, we're all part of an intense, articulate, loving family. Not always an easy family. Crabby sometimes. Mulish. But we have learned that, in these challenging days for the arts in America, when one of us makes a mess, we're all-compromised; when one of us triumphs, all benefit. Interconnections. And our family is spread out. I have the good fortune to travel and see dance outside New York City and, despite the difficult times, a great deal is happening on our dance stages across the country that gives me an enormous feeling of encouragement. Dance is now an integral part of the cultural lives of many cities--where the performance standards are high, repertoires are diverse and challenging, and management is resourceful, innovative. Although we are reaching new, young, and enthusiastic audiences, we all know that we still need to develop more audiences, a particularly difficult dilemma. But compared with twenty years ago, dance has traveled light years.

For example, some of the best evenings of dance I've seen within the past four months have been at Patricia Wilde's Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, at Boston Ballet, and most recently in Denver at Colorado Ballet. In just these three cities, I saw a total of seven brilliant new dance works and two handsome revivals of American masterpieces. This would probably not have been the case a decade ago, but we are in a period of cultural flowering brought on, in dance, by the regional dance movement which began nearly a half century ago. It is not only possible to make a career in the profession outside New York City, but a strong case can also be made for the many advantages of choosing to do so.

And in situation after situation, the structure on which a company's success is built is the idea of a dance family--of talented, articulate, intelligent men and women sharing and giving and being together in an ever-unfolding endeavor which demands focus, concentration, and commitment. Many people I know in dance have no choice at all any longer about being in the field--they wouldn't have it otherwise.

I suppose that's what makes me love this business--the people. Their talent. Their dedication. Their vision.

These are things that fuel our pursuits. And the recipients of the magazine awards embody these special qualities. Knowing that dance is in the care of people like them, we can be assured that our condition is firm, our future healthy.

In a letter of congratulations to this year's recipients, President Bill Clinton made a statement that deftly summarized the value of the arts to the nation: "Art in all its forms," he writes, "is a celebration of culture, encouraging us to gain a deeper understanding of our place in the world. Dance challenges us to explore our boundaries and to appreciate our diversity, uniting people in a common expression of humanity.

"Your honorees can be proud of their work to advance this vibrant legacy. I applaud them for their many contributions to our society."

And so do we.