Bessie Nominations for Czech-Slovak Team

Two representatives of the Czech-Slovak dance scene, the creators of the production Bastard, which was inspired by Jerzy Kosinski’s famous novel The Painted Bird, have been nominated for the prestigious Bessie Award. The winners of this year’s Bessie Awards will be announced on October 7, 2013. The Slovak dancer Jaro Viňarský, who worked for a long time in the Czech Republic, is nominated in the category of Outstanding Performer. Nominated for Outstanding Production is another artist behind the same production, Slovak-born, New York-based choreographer Pavel Zuštiak.
Merely being nominated for a Bessie Award, which The New York Times refers to as the dance Oscars, is a great achievement. In the past this award has gone to such famous artists, choreographers, and dancers as William Forsythe, Trisha Brown, Louise Lecavalier, Meredith Monk, Merce Cunningham, Wim Vandekeybus, Diamanda Galas, Marie Chouinard, Ohad Naharin and Pina Bausch.
Bastard is the first work in the trilogy The Painted Bird. In it Zuštiak deals with the theme of uprootedness, transformation, and otherness. The project was initiated as a coproduction of the American company Palissimo and the cultural organisations Stanica Žilina-Záriečie (SK), the Jerzy Grotowski Institute (PL) and La Mama Etc. (USA). The work was nominated for its staging at the New York festival La MaMa Moves!
Pavel Zuštiak is a choreographer, director, dancer and sound designer who lives in New York. He graduated from the University of Economics in Košice and studied dance and production in Canada and Amsterdam. He founded the dance theatre Palissimo in 2003 in New York, where he works as its artistic director, director, and choreographer. Dancer and choreographer Jaro Viňarský has worked in Prague and Brussels, where he collaborated with choreographer Karine Ponties, and he now lives and works in Slovakia. In 2006 he won a Sazka Award in the Czech Republic in the category of dance newcomer for his own solo Last Foot Forward.