WORLD CHOREOGRAPHY AWARDS 2023

I usually offer a preview of the World Choreography Awards, so you all can attend this wonderful celebration along with the rest of us dance lovers. But, sadly, I didn’t have enough notice this time.

However, as always, the presentation deserves to be lauded, so I’m doing a review of their 2023 edition instead. (Just make sure to bookmark their website at the bottom of this article so you can join us next year. And hopefully I can remind you with a preview once again.)

In an odd way, though, I’m sort-of grateful that I had to wait until now so I can ask all of you to please spare a good thought for WCA winner Derek Hough’s wife and fellow dancer, Hayley Ebert. In case you don’t know, they were on tour with his dance show two weeks ago when all of a sudden, Hayley got disoriented and had to be rushed to the hospital. Her brain was bleeding, so they had to cut out part of her skull! The operation appears to have been successful, knock on wood, but surgery like that usually requires a long road to recovery, so Hayley is not out of the woods. (She’s actually having a second surgery this very morning, to replace the piece of her skull that they had to remove.) I’ve always heard that she’s a tough and positive girl, but I’m sure that she and her family could use as many prayers and good wishes as possible. I’m confident that the entire dance world, and Derek’s fans the world over, are pulling for them. (I’ll have some words on Derek’s award-winning work in a minute.) [Note: This week-end, Derek posted a very short video of the two of them strolling slowly in the nation’s capital, which made Mr. X and my hearts sing. We watched it over and over. Haley is wearing a protective helmet in it, but we were shocked that she’s already walking. That little bit of ambulating was more beautiful to me right now than all their stunning dance videos.]

Now back to the fun of the 2023 The World Choreography Awards which took place last month, and was produced once again by Allen Walls and Cheryl Baxter-Ratliff. I’m sure the dance industry is really grateful to that duo for presenting this annual celebration of their art, which few others do. To reiterate my feelings on the dance world this year (as every year,) I feel that it’s very under-appreciated, even though the artists have some of the hardest jobs in the biz.

The whole evening was a blast! The World Choreography Awards took place at the Hollywood club Avalon for the second year in a row. Since it’s one of the very few opportunities for dancers and choreographers to get together like this all year, the guests started arriving almost two hours before the show began, to have a lot of time to catch-up with each other. (For the people who don’t love such a lengthy mingle, I advise to arrive closer to the time the actual show is listed as.  It usually starts at least a half hour after it’s called for, which is perfect for latecomers!)

For most of the assemblage, half the fun of the awards night is meeting and greeting each other. This is one of the few industry awards evenings that welcomes fans along with insiders, so even if you don’t know anyone personally, it’s wonderful to see people you recognize from TV, movies, videos, and concerts in person and so up-close.

It’s also very interesting to observe the various fashions. Because we’re celebrating dance, there are plenty of gowns, handsome suits, and very creative attire. But on the flip side, some people in that field feel that it’s okay to rock jeans and tees, which, in my book, it is definitely not! But I love witnessing it all.

The program itself is a mix of awards and live performances. Even though I’ve seen some of the nominated and winning numbers on TV before, the short films of them are extra-amazing on the humongous screens at the venue.

I was thrilled to see Derek Hough win the award for “Outstanding Choreography Television Reality Show/Competition” once again, but his being on his aforementioned tour at the time kept him from attending. However, he did send a recorded message from his hotel room. On a shallow note, I was thrilled to see that his tour accommodations are as basic as what most of us procure on our own!

The best presentation of the evening was also the absolute most emotional—the “Legacy Honor” to titan of the industry, choreographer extraordinaire Kenny Ortega. The award was presented by multi-hyphenate Toni Basil, who’s known by the public mianly for her hit ’80s song Mickey, (and who has been in the biz longer than most of the audience members have been alive!) She was joined in lauding Kenny’s very many accomplishments by Sofia Carson, who is an actress/singer who mentioned that she has worked with Kenny.

Many really fun, energetic performances, (the originals of which were choreographed by Kenny, of course,) accompanied this presentation. The crowd went wild for it all. It began with a group number from High School Musical, then Kent Boyd of So You Think You Can Dance fame did a brief solo from Newsies, and the finale was a bit of Dirty Dancing. My table-mates and I were happy to see that the male of that “famous lift” duo was a dancer they are friends with and I’m really familiar with–Ezra Sosa, who was first on So You Think You Can Dance and then more recently, was part of the troupe on Dancing with the Stars. And to cap it all off, the dancers from this entire number formed a line through the center of the audience tables, leading up to where Kenny and his guests were sitting on what I call the “couch of honor” towards the back of the auditorium, and they all danced him up to the stage! It was uber-exciting. And then he and Toni were adorable together.

All the speeches during this section were fabulous, none more so than Kenny’s. Something he said really resonated with me. He quoted one of his mentors, the late great Gene Kelly, who had asked him, “What is your reason for being?” That’s such a good concept for all of us to ponder, which I did when I got home that night. Mine is to be kind to others, make their day when possible, and make the world laugh. So now please consider the question to make it all clear for yourselves. (And I’d love to read yours in the Comments section below.)

All that was only the end of the first half of the 2023 World Choreography Awards, but there’s no better place for me to end my review of the proceedings, to whet your appetites for next year, when I hope to see all you Angelenos there. Put the date(ish) in your 2024 appointment books right now!

To find-out who all the winners were this year, and also how to join us in 2024, just go to www.worldchoreographyawards.com.