Lester Horton Dance Awards

Comments (0) By Ann Haskins Wednesday, Apr 26 2006

Pedagogy in Motion: John Pennington receives an Excellence in Teaching award on Sunday.

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Modern dance pioneer Lester Horton eschewed New York and remained in Los Angeles to create his legendary work. When the L.A. dance community’s Dance Resource Center developed a peer-voted awards program, quite aptly the honor was named after the L.A.-centric Horton. Over the past few years, the awards ceremony has attracted a larger audience with live performances and choreographed tributes that provide a delightful sampler of some of L.A.’s best. This year, the announced tributes to Fred Astaire and the late Fayard Nicholas of the Nicholas Brothers promise both live performance and archival film footage. While the winners of the various nominated categories won’t be known until the event, several announced special awards include Lifetime Achievement (Jaime Rogers), Excellence in Teaching (John Pennington), Furthering the Visibility of Dance (Victoria Looseleaf) and the Gary Bates Service to the Field Award (Eileen Cooley). While they may not have the public profile of the movies’ Oscars or Broadway’s Tony awards, L.A.’s Horton awards certainly are no less cherished. At El Portal Theater, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., N. Hlywd.; Sun., April 30, 5 p.m.; $40-$20 in advance; $45-$25 at door. (626) 791-8159 or dancezine@drc-la.org.

—Ann Haskins