Hedwignites 2021 was our second foray in hosting our annual gala in virtual space to support the company’s accomplishments and endeavors. The turnout was marvelous, the unique Headwigs fashioned by our artists and guests were a celebration of creativity! Once again we were joined by guests from their homes all over North America. Guests checked in from Mexico, Maryland, Washington DC, New York, Virginia, Wisconsin, Florida, California, our home base of Chicago, and throughout Illinois.
Guests attending the March 26 online gala enjoyed the opportunity to meet and mingle with Jan Bartoszek, Artistic Associate Maray Gutierrez, our fantastic board of directors, our dancers, Hedwig Dance Award recipients Amaniyea Payne (Dance Leadership Award), William Frederking (Dance Advocacy Award) and Kathrene Wales, (Heart of the Arts Award), Keynote speaker Michael Orlove, and award presenters Onye Ozuzu, Jan Erkert, and Suellen Burns. We enjoyed tribute videos, heard heart warming remarks, got a sneak peak into the company’s plans for 2021 and beyond in these challenging times of the C-19 pandemic. Videos, images and more mementos of the evening are included below.
Presented by Onye Ozuzu
AMANIYEA PAYNE is an internationally recognized artistic force as a dancer, singer, consultant, researcher, director, mentor, producer, choreographer, arts educator, costume designer, and humanitarian. From 1987 to 2019, Amaniyea served as Artistic Director of Muntu Dance Theatre of Chicago. During her tenure, she was the principal architect of the company’s technical growth, expanded repertory and national reputation. She brought to the Company a commitment to authentic presentations of traditional African dance and a vision of developing and nurturing new work rooted in African, African American and Caribbean traditions.
Her style of dance is centered in natural rhythmic movements based in and informed by traditional African dance and movement of the African Diaspora, with an emphasis on the Caribbean, as well as traditional jazz and dance theater. She has studied/trained, performed, and toured globally with prominent companies and well-known music and dance legends, such as Koumpo West African Touring Ensemble, Stevie Wonder, Cab Calloway, Ben Harper, International African-American Ballet, Bunny Wailers, Lindy-hop innovators Norma Miller, Frankie Manning, Momma Lou Parks, Mickey Davidson, and Muntu Dance Theatre of Chicago, to name a few.
Ms. Payne is an esteemed master teacher who has inspired dance artists and students around the world. She served as Adjunct Faculty at the Dance Center of Columbia College for many years, as a teacher in Chicago area schools through Urban Gateways and at the Hedwig School of Dance at the Chicago Cultural Center, among many institutions. Her choreographic credits include the production ”Black Heroes and the Hall of Fame,” which later toured the United States and England, and the restaging of Oscar Brown Jr.’s award winning musical ”The Great Nitty Gritty.” She is included in dance documentaries produced by Nippon Television (Japan NY), by the BBC and has received the prestigious Ruth Page award two times, in 1994 for Dance Achievement and in 2001 for Lifetime Service.
Presented by Jan Erkert
WILLIAM (Bill) FREDERKING received an M.F.A. in Photography from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1983. That same year he was hired by Columbia College Chicago, as a full-time assistant studio manager, overseeing the new lighting studio. He was made full-time (tenured) faculty member of the department in 1994. His 34-year teaching career included teaching undergrad and graduate-level photography courses as well as beginning and advanced studio lighting courses. In his later years, he taught a course in Performance Photography.
In 1981 Bill began photographing dancers, following the first request to help a neighbor. By 1990 his practice of photographing dancers branched into studio shoots. In the early 2000’s, with the advent of digital photography and the ability to better photograph movement in low light, he began to photograph more live dance performance.
In the summer of 2007, Bill began a personal studio shoot project, which involved dancers improvising in pro-bono dance shoots. Links Hall offered Bill a photographic residency in 2013-14 where he was able to photograph approximately 40 dancers in solo portraits. Other residencies at American Rhythm Center and Harold Washington Cultural Center followed. This project is ongoing. To date, Bill has photographed approximately 170 dancers for this project. Every participating dancer receives 50-100 images at no cost. The dancers are free to use their photographs to promote their careers. Once pandemic restrictions lift, he hopes to continue this project.
In addition to his teaching career at Columbia College, Bill served two stints as Assistant Dean in the Fine and Performing Arts department. He retired from the college in 2017.
Presented by Suellen Burns
KATHRENE WALES is a passionate supporter of all forms of dance, in tandem with, all genres of performing and visual arts. Her career in the nonprofit sector as an arts administrator, professional fundraiser and management consultant spans several decades serving in a leadership capacity for a wide spectrum of culturally diverse organizations including a 10-year tenure with Columbia College Chicago. Of special note, in her capacity as the founding Executive Director of Arts Bridge, the nation’s first business incubator for arts groups, Kathrene supported the growth and development of a host of artist entrepreneurial led organizations including Hedwig Dances. She subsequently joined and remains a member of their Advisory Board.
Ms. Wales’ background also encompasses directing several Boards and volunteer committees, including her past role as President of the Uptown Chamber of Commerce and Member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals Chicago Chapter’s Board of Directors. The recipient of the Athena Award for Outstanding Business Woman of the Year, she has shared her experiences as a part-time faculty member and guest speaker at universities and special interest group forums. Presently, she is the Director of Development for Desert Arc, a human services agency serving people with disabilities in Southern California since 1959.
Michael Orlove currently serves as the Director of State, Regional & Local Partnerships. In that capacity, Orlove provides direction concerning the National Endowment for the Arts funding and other assistance to the 56 state and jurisdictional arts agencies, the six regional arts agencies, and local arts agencies across the country. Additionally, Orlove manages the agency’s international activities. He was the Agency’s director of Artist Communities and Presenting & Multidisciplinary Works from 2012 to 2019.
Born and raised in Chicago, Orlove spent 19 years as senior program director for the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. His tenure with the department led to nearly two decades of innovation, creativity, and passion for public service with the City of Chicago. Orlove helped transform the Chicago Cultural Center into a prime downtown performing arts venue, as well as launched Chicago SummerDance and World Music Festival: Chicago, two staples in the summer festival season. Orlove also served as the director of music programming in Millennium Park since its grand opening in 2004 and helped establish many of the program series in that venue.
Michael has been an invited guest speaker and panelist at numerous national and international conferences and convenings. Honors include being named one of the ‘Chicagoans of the Year’ in music by the Chicago Tribune in both 1999 and 2009, as well as one of Chicago’s ‘Global Visionaries’ by Chicago Public Radio WBEZ and the Chicago Matters: Beyond Burnham series. As a testament to his international expertise, Orlove was named one of the ‘Seven Samurai’ at the prestigious WOMEX (World Music Expo) 2009 Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark and, in 2018, was given the inaugural GlobalFEST ‘Impact Award’ for outstanding commitment to the world music field. He was recently selected for the DeVos Global Arts Management Fellowship (2018-2020).
He has a BA in history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MA in performing arts management from Columbia College Chicago.
ONYE OZUZU is a performing artist, choreographer, administrator, educator and researcher currently serving as the Dean of the College of the Arts at the University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. Previously she was Dean of the School of Fine and Performing Arts at Columbia College Chicago.
Onye has been presenting Dance works since 1997. Based in the US her work has been seen at venues such as Seattle Festival of Improvisational Dance, Kaay Fecc Festival Des Tous les Danses(Dakar, Senegal), La Festival del Caribe (Santiago, Cuba), Lisner Auditorium (Washington DC), McKenna Museum of African American Art (New Orleans, LA), danceGATHERING Lagos, as well as many anonymous site-specific locations. Recent work includes Touch My Beloved’s Thought a collaboration with composer, Greg Ward, Project Tool, a work which garnered a 2018 Joyce Award. She facilitates work in a group improvisational score, The Technology of the Circle. She continues to serve the field of dance as a thought leader, speaker, and curator.
JAN ERKERT has been the Head of the Department of Dance at University of Illinois from 2006- present. As Artistic Director of Jan Erkert & Dancers she created over 70 works that received recognition from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Illinois Arts Council.
Erkert’s current research explores leadership from an embodied perspective. She has been awarded two major awards from the University of Illinois – the Executive Officer Distinguished Leadership Award (2020), for her outstanding leadership and vision, and the Larine Y. Cowan Make a Difference Award for Leadership in Diversity (2014) for her work to undo racism within the department, college and university. She was selected to be a Public Voices Fellow in 2020 as part of the national OpEd Project, and has published OpEds in CNN Opinion, The Chicago Sun Times, and Visible Magazine. She is currently seeking publication of her manuscript, Drink the Wild Air, A Sensorial Journey Through Leadership, and has published a blog, artists on leadership.
Ms. Erkert has been a national leader in dance, serving as the President of the Council of Dance Administrators and as a commissioner on accreditation for the National Association for Schools of Dance. She is a Fulbright Scholar Awardee and a nationally renowned teacher having conducted guest artist residencies throughout the United States, Mexico, Europe and Asia. She is the author of Harnessing the Wind: The Art of Teaching Modern Dance (2003) and she received the 1999 Excellence in Teaching Award from Columbia College Chicago.
SUELLEN BURNS is a versatile public service professional in the arts, environmental, and urban planning fields with more than 25 years of experience in program development and assessment, community engagement, communications, marketing, fundraising, finance, executive leadership, and grantmaking. She has served as senior program officer for the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation since 2018. There she manages $2.5M in annual grantmaking for arts and culture initiatives in Chicago and also supports the Foundation’s built environment grantmaking. In addition, she is a commissioner for the Commission on Chicago Landmarks (an appointment from Mayor Lori Lightfoot) and an adjunct faculty member for DePaul University’s graduate School of Public Service. Her previous work has included roles with – among numerous others – Arts Bridge (the nation’s first business incubator for the arts), Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Illinois Department of Natural Resources, and the Suzuki-Orff School for Young Musicians. Suellen earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a master of science degree in leadership and policy studies from DePaul University.