Portland’s White Bird, the sole dance-only presenter west of the Rockies, and Co-Founders Walter Jaffe and Paul King, are enormously honored to be the recipient of the 2012 William Dawson Award for Programmatic Excellence and Sustained Achievement in Programming from the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP). Jaffe & King accepted the award on Monday, January 9th at APAP’s annual award luncheon at the Hilton New York in New York City.
The William Dawson award is presented to an individual or organization for the quality, innovation, and vision of program design, audience building, and community involvement effort. Past recipients have included Mark Russell (Under the Radar, Public Theater and former Guest Artistic Director, PICA TBA Festival), Ella Baff (Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival), and Ruth Felt (San Francisco Performances). “[Paul and Walter] are pioneers in the dance presenting field,” comments President and CEO of APAP, Mario Garcia Durham. “Their leadership is a model for the passion, persistence and community commitment our field requires. They are unstoppable presenters whose work has had an impact locally and on the dance and presenting fields at large.”
“[Portland] wouldn’t be part of the national and international conversation in dance without them,” adds former Oregonian arts editor and Oregon Arts Watch founder Barry Johnson. “Their determination and energy make the organization substantial in a small urban center.”
“We are extremely honored and grateful to be recognized for this national award as well as being included in the extraordinary company of the other award recipients,” says Jaffe. King adds, “We absolutely share this amazing honor with Portland’s extraordinarily vibrant dance and arts community, our loyal audience, and the enormously supportive individuals, foundations and government leaders that make arts in our city a top priority.”
This national award comes on the back of Paul King and Walter Jaffe receiving the Jerry Willis Achievement Award for artistic excellence, distinguished leadership, and extraordinary vision at the 2011 Western Arts Alliance Conference in Seattle in September 2011.
Founded in 1997, White Bird is the sole, dance-only presenter west of the Rockies. Since then it has presented 148 companies to an audience of over 300,000, commissioned or co-commissioned 29 new works, and organized free dance performances for 35,000 Portland Public School students. Each year it brings 12 contemporary dance companies from around the world to Portland, Oregon. You can read more White Bird in APAP’s Inside Arts magazine
To learn more about White Bird, click hear to watch Oregon Art Beat’s recent program about the organization.
White Bird Uncaged premiered “Make/Believe” this weekend (January 26-28) by tEEth, a local dance company and an Oregon Cultural Trust Development grant recipient for 2011-12.
photo: Awards Luncheon