Eligibility
Applicants must be 18 years of age, US citizens and not enrolled in an educational program.
Award
The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation is pleased to announce a National $50,000.00 award to a contemporary choreographer. As part of the award, the awardee will share an evening of work presented by our partner, Portland Ovations, through their Raising the Barre initiative. Program to be mutually determined based on venue, production, scale, etc.
Within the $50,000 award, recipient is responsible for all artist fees, travel/transportation to and from Maine and all production elements needed to stage an evening of work in Maine. Any monies remaining beyond these expenses are to be fully retained by the artist to use as they need. Portland Ovations will provide presentation tech, local transportation, lodging, marketing and manage all presentation elements. Applicants should be aware that Maine venues are primarily proscenium. This is not a commission nor is awardee required to present new work. A sample contract is available in submittable. All questions should be directed to the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation.
The Contemporary Dance Award is an effort to bolster the field, incubate new ideas and bring more dance to Maine. In its finest iteration, Contemporary Dance is sublime, expressive and powerful beyond language. We are thrilled to join the conversation to support movement-based art.
All questions should be directed to Donna McNeil, Founding Executive Director, Ellis-Beauregard Foundation at 207-594-5825 or donna@ellis-beauregardfoundation.org.
Review Process
The entries will be judged on artistic excellence by a three-member jury.
Submission
Applications are being accepted through via the Submit button below or via www.submittble.com by choreographers living in the United States beginning May 1, 2023 with a deadline of July 1, 2023.
Jurors
2023 Awardee
Faye Driscoll
The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation, Rockland, Maine, is thrilled to announce that a $25,000 award for Contemporary Dance has been granted to Faye Driscoll. The team of three esteemed jurors: Kyle Abraham, Janet Wong and Philip Bither, were unanimous in their praise of Driscoll stating “Faye Driscoll is one of the most influential artists of our time. So many artists have drawn inspiration from the magnitude and breadth of her artistic footprint.” Driscoll was selected from a pool of over 105 applicants nationwide through an open call process
Faye Driscoll (b. 1975, California, lives and works in New York) is an award-winning art and performance maker who uses an alchemy of bodies and voices, objects and live sound to conjure worlds that are, like ourselves, alive and forever changeable. She creates immersive experiences of sensorial complexity and perceptual disorientation aimed to rile up the passive, numb, screened-out body. These interventions come in the shape of intimacies: a performer holding your hand, death metal song made through recording your stomping feet, a place to rest and a private guided choreography in your ear. Faye Driscoll’s awards are impressive, including: Randjelovic/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist at New York Live Arts, MidAtlantic Arts International Award, Performing Arts Residency Lab (PeARL) at Montclair State University, Jacob’s Pillow Artist Award, Doris Duke Artist Award, United States Artist Fellowship, MAP Fund Award, FUSED/French US Exchange in Dance Award, National Dance Project Production Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, Creative Capital Award, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Artist Award, The Jerome Foundation Award, National Dance Project Production Award, Bessie Award, Outstanding Production.The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation in Partnership with Portland Ovations is extremely proud to bring this supremely talented choreographer and performer to Maine. “ The inaugural year of our Dance Award has proven to be a welcome addition to the panoply of institutional support for choreography. Through the discipline of movement, and in Faye’s case, multidisciplinary work, audiences are offered pathways toward meaningful and deeply transformative experiences. The Foundation is committed to supporting the cultural trove of our nation and sharing those fine artist/awardees work with the people of Maine.” Adds Donna McNeil, Founding Executive Director, Ellis-Beauregard Foundation.Accolades from other sources: Faye Driscoll is a Bessie Award-winning performance maker who has been hailed as a “startlingly original talent” (Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times) and “a postmillenium postmodern wild woman” (Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice).The award also includes an additional $15,000. To ready the work for presentation through our partner organization, Portland Ovations. Aimee Petrin, Executive Director commented, “Ovations is excited to present Faye Driscoll during our 2023-2024 season. We are grateful to the panelists and the partnership with the Ellis Beauregard Foundation.Unique opportunities like this expand the curatorial process and allow Ovations to take artistic and financial risks. Because of this award, a new group of dance makers are shared with funders, curators and fellow artists.
Photo by : Bea Borgers