Lewitzky Is Big Winner in First Horton Awards

Bella Lewitzky was the big winner Sunday when the first Lester Horton Awards were announced by the Dance Resource Center, a service organization in the arts community.

The awards, an event honoring local accomplishment over the past year, were scheduled to be presented at Cal State Los Angeles. They are named for the Los Angeles dance pioneer who died in 1953 but has achieved wide influence through his students and associates--including Alvin Ailey, Joyce Trisler, Carmen de Lavallade and Lewitzky herself.

Besides winning the life achievement award, Lewitzky was honored for outstanding achievement in restaging, revival or reconstruction (for her August, 1991, retrospective at Pepperdine), besides sharing in a special award, series/festival, for directing the “In the Works” lecture/demonstrations sponsored by the Dance Gallery.

Former Lewitzky dancer Loretta Livingston also received multiple honors: outstanding achievement in choreography plus outstanding achievement in performance/company--both for her full-evening work “A Window in the Passage,” which took the award for outstanding achievement in visual design as well.

Livingston’s “Window” shared the choreography award with Stephanie Gilliland’s “Spell: Still Creating the World,” which was also among the pieces that earned composer Butch Rovan an award for outstanding achievement in sound/music/score/text.

Other awardees included Victoria Koenig and Rudy Perez for outstanding achievement in performance/individual, and Eddie Brown for sustained achievement.

In addition, Donald Hewitt won a special award for producing the “Dance Kaleidoscope” series and David Leahy the Dance Resource Center board of directors award.

Members of the Dance Resource Center elected the awardees by mail and announced the winners Sunday at the close of the two-day Dance Fair at Cal State Los Angeles.