Alumna June Omura Honored with Coveted "Bessie" Dance Award for 2004-2005
 For the past 17 years, June Omura, '86, has been performing in Brooklyn with the Mark Morris Dance Group. That alone, she says, has been gratifying. But to return to dancing after giving birth to twin daughters and then to receive the prestigious Bessie Award for her work has made Omura feel like a "lucky woman."
"Getting to perform Mark's choreography all this time has been its own reward," she says. "So the Bessie award is very sweet and kind of amazing. I love what I do and to be recognized for it is both humbling and a thrill."
Omura joined over 450 other artists, producers and press on Sunday evening, Sept. 18, at the Joyce Theater for the Twenty-First Annual New York Dance and Performance Awards (a.k.a. The Bessies). The event--sponsored by Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, and the Joyce Theater--honored "the exceptional achievements of the 2004-2005 season." Named popularly after the teacher Bessie Schonberg Varley, the Bessies are presented each year to New York City artists or artists who don't live here but who have performed in the city. Only 31 individuals received recognition in 24 categories, and each recipient also received a cash prize. Omura was one of six named for the Performers Award.
Omura credits her time at Barnard with helping her connect with Morris. She'd been writing dance reviews for WKCR and the Barnard Bulletin when she first saw his dance group perform as part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music's 1984 Next Wave Festival. She says she was so overwhelmed by the program that she never did write a review of it. But during her senior year when she received in her Barnard mailbox a brochure from the company about their summer workshop, she knew what she wanted to do.
"Maybe all the other dance majors were sent the brochure, I don't know, but I was excited at the possibility," Omura says. "Barnard's Dance Department was willing to pay for the workshop for me and I went. Meeting Mark and studying with him was huge: he was and is brilliant, difficult, demanding, and inspiring, and it felt like destiny--but without Barnard, who knows?"
Because of that internship, Omura says both her work and her gratitude have grown over the years. She officially joined the Mark Morris Dance Group in 1988 shortly after graduating from Barnard, and has appeared and toured with the company throughout the country ever since. Now with one of the dance world's most prestigious awards as well Omura has another reason to be thankful and is already looking forward to the next season.
--Jo Kadlecek
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