UMD DANCE PROFESSOR WINS POLA NIRENSKA MEMORIAL AWARD
ARHU's Alvin Mayes wins prestigious lifetime achievement award.
The University of Maryland (UMD) School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies (TDPS) is pleased to announce that Professor Alvin Mayes has been presented with the 2011 Pola Nirenska Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement in Dance. The presentation took place at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, during a Maryland Dance Ensemble concert featuring one of his works.
A prolific teacher and choreographer, Mayes has served on the TDPS faculty since 1978, when he also began performing and choreographing with Maryland Dance Theatre. Mayes received the “2003 Distinguished Scholar – Teacher” Award of the Center for Teaching Excellence at UMD.
Outside of the university, he is well known for his choreography and his contributions as an educator with the Maryland Youth Ballet and the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington. He also works with the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, a multicultural, multigenerational volunteer theater group.
“I am honored to receive this award, and to follow in the footsteps of such dance luminaries as Meriam Rosen and Erika Thimey, who gave dance in education a vivid voice,” said Mayes. “My work spans many age groups and disciplines, crosses the boundaries of ballet and modern dance, and includes dance activism to create change in the professional dance arena.”
Mayes is a recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Prince George’s Arts Council. He was recognized for faculty mentoring by the Philip Merrill Presidential Scholars Program in 2010 and won the “Metro D.C. Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance Education” in 2007.
The Pola Nirenska Award is presented by the Washington Performing Arts Society (WPAS) and is named for the matriarch of modern dance in D.C. The Polish-born Nirenska is credited with elevating the art form as a dancer, choreographer and teacher at a time when it was scarcely known by the general public. The annual Pola Nirenska Awards were established in 1994 by her Polish expatriate husband, Dr. Jan Karski, and winners are selected by a committee of dance professionals hosted by the WPAS.