Choreographers Dance Off With Prizes

Amid the excitement and glamour at the Seventh Annual American Choreography Awards show Sunday at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, one theme kept bringing everyone back to earth.

“It’s always about giving back to the masters,” choreographer Brian “Footwork” Green said in accepting the first hip-hop-style video award. Green won for the Mya music video “Free,” sharing honors in this division with Tina Landon for her choreography for another Mya video, “Case of the Ex.”

The American Choreography Awards, sponsored by the Academy of Dance on Film, honor the creators of dance-on-camera: videos, commercials and movie choreography. A total of 10 awards were given in nine categories.

Lula Washington, artistic director of Lula Washington Dance Theatre and for two decades head of an urban dance-education program, came back to the theme of honoring antecedents when she accepted the Educator Award. “Everyone here started in some small studio in some town,” she said.

In receiving the feature film award for “Moulin Rouge,” Australian choreographer John O’Connell remarked how deeply honored he felt to be recognized by the town and the country that had inspired him to pursue dance after seeing a Hollywood film when he was 6 years old. His work was his payback to the movie industry, he said.

Choreographer Tony Charmoli, renowned for his television work, in accepting the career achievement award, turned the telescope around the other way. He asked all the dancers in the audience to stand up for recognition.

Indeed, for all the film and video clips shown during the three-hour-plus program, the live dancing segments made the most impact. Vincent Paterson’s “The Mission” (to Ennio Morricone’s “On Earth As It Is in Heaven”) closed the first half with a sobering, inspiring vision of a shattered group slowly coalescing into a new unity. Alan Johnson’s “Dance” finale, which otherwise might have been just a flash romp, capped the evening by paying homage to humanity’s irrepressible life force.

Other winners included Bob Mackie (Governors Award); Michael Rooney (commercials, for his Exxon/Mobil “Swing,” and dance video for Fat Boy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice”); Patti Colombo (episodic television, “Two Guys and a Girl” in “The One Without Dialogue”) and Barry Lather for the 2001 Miss America Pageant.