The Della Davidson Prize honored the life and work of choreographer and teacher Della Davidson, by supporting innovative dance and dance/theater artists. From 2013 to 2020, an annual prize of $1,220 (in honor of Della’s birthday 12/20) was awarded to a choreographer/dance-maker producing work in the spirit of Della Davidson.
2020 Awardee:
Jubilith Moore, a performer, director, teaching artist and producer of live performance, has devoted her professional life to exploring the ongoing life of traditional Japanese and contemporary American performance. She has studied noh with Richard Emmert, Akira Matsui and Kinue Oshima; kyogen with Yukio Ishida and Yuriko Doi. A Founding Company Member of Theatre Nohgaku she was also Theatre of Yugen’s Artistic Director from 2001 to 2014. A Japan Foundation Fellow, she has received Theater Bay Area’s CA$H and CA$H Creates awards, Theater Communication Group’s Future Collaborations and Leadership U[niversity] grants and the Investing in Artists grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation.
Past awardees:
2019: Sarah Bush
2018: Dawn Frank Holtan
2017: Deborah Vaughan
2016: Erin Mei-Ling Stuart
2015: Deborah Slater
2014: Debby Kajiyama
2013: Randee Paufve and Monique Jenkinson
Della Davidson (1951-2012) was a dance theater artist who created interdisciplinary works exploring the presence of women and the lyrical power of dance, image and storytelling. Over the course of her career, she created over 40 works and made her mark as a “central figure in West Coast dance.” She was a professor of Theater and Dance at the University of California, Davis and Artistic Director of Della Davidson Dance Theater and Sideshow Physical Theater.
Della’s innovative work on women’s desire, death, disease, and the fragility of existence was lyrical, collaborative, and multidisciplinary, using dance, theater and film. One of her greatest gifts was to recognize potential in others and bring out their strengths, whether they were her students, her dancers, her collaborators, her colleagues or her friends. Della’s sense of delight and play, along with a profound connection to the elemental forces of life and death, shaped her art and her life.
-San Francisco Chronicle
