Top Honors Are an Encore for Modern Dancer : Dance: Local choreographer Loretta Livingston wins multiple honors at Lester Horton Dance Awards for second year in a row.

For the second year in a row, locally based modern dancer/choreographer Loretta Livingston won multiple honors at the annual Lester Horton Dance Awards, an event celebrating achievement throughout the Southern California area.

Presented in a ceremony on Saturday evening at the Watercourt in California Plaza, the Horton Awards are named after the California dance pioneer who died in 1953, and are administered by the Dance Resource Center, a service organization in the arts community.

Livingston’s “A History of Restlessness” won for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography, while her dancing of the solo “Don’t Fall Pomegranate” shared the award for Outstanding Achievement in Performance/Individual with Lori DuPeron’s interpretation of “Rope Dance.”

DuPeron’s company, the It Squad, also received an award for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Design, honoring Eileen Cooley’s lighting for “Crash Test Dummies and Other Love Songs.”

The L.A. Chamber Ballet production of Mary Jane Eisenberg’s “Group Portrait: Satoh Piece” won for Outstanding Achievement in Restaging, Revival or Reconstruction. In addition, Eric Ruskin’s score for L.A. Chamber Ballet’s “Tunnel” won in the category of Outstanding Achievement in Sound/Music/Score/Text.

Turks took two major prizes on Saturday. The Mehmet Sander Dance Company’s prowess in “Board Stiff” won for Outstanding Achievement in Performance/ Company. In addition, Ahmet Luleci Halay’s Turkish Men’s Dance for the Aman Folk Ensemble won in the category of Outstanding Achievement in Staging Traditional Dance.

A Special Award went to Lula and Erwin Washington for hosting the 5th Annual Black Dance Companies Conference and Showcase. Finally, the careers of Lola Montes and Gloria Newman were honored with Sustained Achievement Awards.

The Dance Resource Center membership nominated candidates in each category and voted on the finalists by mail. All movement-based work performed locally in 1992 was eligible.

Productions and performances at the Japan America Theatre and Cal State L.A. took the bulk of the awards, with events at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, Cal Tech and Occidental College also represented. UCLA, the area’s biggest presenter of concert dance, had no winners--though it did host the Loretta Livingston company this year and has scheduled Aman and Mehmet Sander for 1994.