Join Dance/USA in recognizing this year's Honor Award recipient Carmen de Lavallade, Ernie Award (named for the late Ian “Ernie” Horvath) recipient Richard J. Caples, and Champion Award recipients The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation and the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation.

Honor Award
Carmen de Lavallade
Carmen de Lavallade began studying ballet at age 14 with Melissa Blake, and at age 16 was awarded a scholarship to study dance with Lester Horton. In 1949, Ms. de Lavallade became a member of Lester Horton Dance Theater, where from 1950 to 1954, she enjoyed the status of lead dancer. In 1954, Ms. de Lavallade made her Broadway debut in House of Flowers, and that same year Alvin Ailey moved to New York City to partner with her in that production. During that engagement in 1955, she met and married dancer and actor Geoffrey Holder. With Holder, she completed her signature solo, Come Sunday, set to black spirituals sung by Odetta Gordon. Ms. de Lavallade danced as the prima ballerina in several Metropolitan Opera performances, and by the early 1960s was a principal guest performer with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company. In 1970, Ms. de Lavallade joined the prestigious Yale School of Drama as a choreographer and performer-in-residence. She staged musicals, plays and operas, and later became a professor and member of the Yale Repertory Theater. Between 1990 and 1993, she returned to the Metropolitan Opera as choreographer for Porgy and Bess and Die Meistersinger. Ms. de Lavallade has received the Black History Month Lifetime Achievement Award, a Rosie Award, and a Bessie Award. She is the recipient of honorary degrees in Fine Arts from Adelphi University (1993), Boston Conservatory of Music (1994), and State University of New York at Purchase and Bloomfield College (both in 2006). The year 2010 marks the 60th Anniversary of deLavallade’s debut on the concert dance stage.
^{Photo by Tom Caravaglia}

In the Words of her Colleagues...
"She is perfection, adored and respected.  An enlightened artist, utterly captivating on stage, and an extraordinary, elegant person who has not only lived through but influenced the story of the arts in this country.  She is also an important part of the story of Jacob’s Pillow, having the longest history of performances at the Festival – over 51 years, from 1953 through 2004."
- Ella Baff, Executive Director

"For me, Carmen de Lavallade is the very definition of an artistic soul.  As a young choreographer who hadn't worked with Carmen but admired her from afar, I was startled by her openness during my very first rehearsal.  Artistically, she doesn't hold back - she goes straight to that vulnerable, blind place that any artist must venture to be authentic. She is radically unafraid and sharply intuitive, and it is through her clarity that I begin to see my own intentions reflected. I am honored and humbled by her willingness to share her gifted self in service of my dance." 
- Kate Weare, Artistic Director, Kate Weare Company

The Honor Award will be presented by:
Gus Solomons jr (founder/artistic director/dancer) - dances, makes dances, writes about dance for Dance Magazine, Gay City News, and DanceInsider.com, and is an Arts Professor at NYU/Tisch School of the Arts.  He earned an architecture degree from M.I.T. before dancing with the companies of Pearl Lang, Donald McKayle, Martha Graham, and Merce Cunningham, among others; he bicycles everywhere.  He created the leading role in Donald Byrd/The Group’s nationally acclaimed The Harlem Nutcracker and created a non-singing role in Martha Clarke's production of The Magic Flute at Glimmerglass Opera and Canadian Opera; he has danced as guest artist with Complexions.  In 2000, Solomons received a N. Y. Dance and Performance Award (a.k.a. "Bessie") for Sustained Achievement in Choreography.  In 2001, he was the first recipient of the Robert A. Muh Award for a distinguished artist/alumnus of M.I.T., in 2004, was honored with ADF’s Balasaraswati/Joy Ann Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching, and in 2006-7, was a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, lecturing at universities across the country.  In January, 2008, he played the title role in Shakespeare’s “Othello” off-off-Broadway.

Ernie Award
Dick Caples
Dick Caples is the executive director (and also a member of the board) of the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company. In his 26 years as executive director of the company (one of the longest such tenures in dance), Mr. Caples has raised more than $15 million, enabling Lubovitch to create more than 60 new dances for the company (as well as additional dances for other companies). During his tenure, the company has produced more than 1,000 performances, seen live by more than a million people in more than 20 foreign countries and 30 American states. He has served on panels of various national and regional arts organizations, and he currently serves on the board of Dance/USA (during 15 years of service at various times he has worked as vice chair, treasurer and secretary), as well as on the board of Doug Varone and Dancers. From 1981-84, he served on the board of Laura Dean Dancers & Musicians, and from 2002-05, he served on the board of the Artists Community Federal Credit Union. He was educated at Yale (B.A. with special honors), Johns Hopkins (M.A.), and Cornell (J.D.). After practicing law for six years in New York City, first with Donovan Leisure Newton & Irvine and then with Shearman & Sterling, he was appointed executive director of the Santa Fe Festival Theatre in 1983. In 1984, he returned to New York and joined the Lubovitch company in his present capacity. He has served on the copyright law and entertainment law committees of the New York City Bar Association, and, time permitting, he provides legal and other professional services to a variety of arts organizations and individual artists, including the 50 choreographers who participated in Pentacle’s Help Desk program (for which he served as a mentor from 2000-06).

In the Words of his Colleagues...
"Dick Caples is one of those rare individuals with a meticulous analytical mind and a dedicated and expansive heart.  As a manager, mentor, board member and friend he works incredibly hard, is generous with his experience and knowledge, conveys an infectious enthusiasm and sense of purpose and, all the while, remains steadfastly and selflessly committed to everything he undertakes."
- Anne Dunning, ARTS Action Research and former Chair of Dance/USA

"Dick Caples is a passionate and deeply talented administrator. He has been a true hero in providing expertise to help guide ZviDance as our infrastructure has grown."
- David Persky, Executive Director, ZviDance

"Dick Caples has been a wonderful advisor and supporter of my work since day one. His friendly advice continues to linger in my mind and inspire daily decisions. I am so grateful for his kind mentorship."
- Larry Keigwin, Artistic Director, Keigwin + Company

"Dick, your generosity, expertise and good humor are huge assets to the field. Thank you for sharing them so freely with us. Congratulations!"
- Tom Cynova, Deputy Director, Fractured Atlas

The Ernie Award will be presented by:
Lar Lubovitch
One of America's most versatile, popular and highly acclaimed choreographers, Lar Lubovitch founded the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company 41 years ago. In the years since, he has choreographed more than 100 dances for his New York-based company, which has performed in nearly all 50 American states as well as in more than 30 foreign countries.

Lar's dances are renowned for their musicality, rhapsodic style and sophisticated formal structures. His radiant, highly technical choreography and deeply humanistic voice have been acclaimed throughout the world. Lar Lubovitch has been hailed by The New York Times as "one of the ten best choreographers in the world," and the company has been called a "national treasure" by Variety.

Born in Chicago, Lar Lubovitch was educated at the University of Iowa and the Juilliard School in New York. His teachers at Juilliard included Antony Tudor, Jose Limon, Anna Sokolow and Martha Graham. He danced in numerous modern, ballet, jazz and ethnic companies before forming the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in 1968.

Champion Awards
The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation
The Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation is the largest private, independent, local Foundation focused exclusively on the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The Foundation is the legacy of Morris Cafritz, one of Washington’s leading commercial and residential builders from the early 1920’s to the mid-60’s. An outstanding civic leader known for his generosity, Morris Cafritz established the Foundation in 1948. His wife, Gwendolyn, one of Washington’s leading hostesses in the post World War II years, was President of the Foundation from 1964 to 1988. In December 1988, Calvin Cafritz was elected to the Board of Directors of The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation and since February 1989, has served as Board Chairman. In July 1993, he was elected President and CEO of the Foundation.

Since 1970, awards totaling more than $338 million have been granted. In the last 10 years, $164 million has been awarded to more than 920 organizations in the areas of Community Services, Arts and Humanities, Education, Health and the Environment.

The Foundation is committed to improving the quality of life for residents of the Washington, DC area.

The Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation
The Meyer Foundation is committed to developing Greater Washington as a community. We value and promote the region's diversity. Meyer supports capable, community-based organizations that foster the well-being of all people in the region. We are especially concerned about low-income people and creating healthy neighborhoods.

The Foundation awards grants to nonprofit organizations that serve the people and communities of Greater Washington.

The Meyer Foundation:

• Supports visionary and talented nonprofit leaders.
• Makes early and strategic investments in nonprofit organizations.
• Strengthens the management and infrastructure of nonprofits in the region.
• Promotes a strong and influential nonprofit sector.
• Builds partnerships to foster the sector's work.
• Serves as a resource to other donors who want to make effective charitable investments in the region.