Here Are the 2025 Dance Magazine Award Honorees

This year’s Dance Magazine Awards will honor Donald Byrd; Frances Chung; Mandy Moore; Kenny Ortega; Lula Washington; and Brenda Way and Kimi Okada for their work with ODC. The Chairman’s Award will go to Debbie Allen for her work as an educator, and the posthumous awards will celebrate four artists who were not recognized by the awards committee during their lifetimes.

A tradition dating back to 1954, the Dance Magazine Awards are given in appreciation of the artistry, integrity, and resilience that dance artists have demonstrated over the course of their careers. The 2025 awards have a special West Coast focus. Each of this year’s honorees has been instrumental in shaping this vibrant but often underrecognized part of the American dance landscape. While the ceremony has historically been held in New York City, this year it will take place in Los Angeles, at the Debbie Allen Dance Academy.

Please join us for the 2025 celebration on Monday, December 8, at 7 pm PST, featuring performances and presentations for each awardee. For ticket information, visit the Dance Media store.

Donald Byrd
The Tony-nominated and Bessie Award-winning choreographer Donald Byrd, known for works that use dance as both an art form and a social and civic instrument, became artistic director of Seattle’s Spectrum Dance Theater in December 2002. From 1978–2002, he was artistic director of Donald Byrd/The Group, a critically acclaimed contemporary dance company founded in Los Angeles and later based in New York. He has created numerous modern and contemporary dance pieces for his own groups, for other modern and classical dance companies, and for theater and opera. Byrd’s many awards and prizes include a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship,  Doris Duke Artist Award, and the James Baldwin Fellow of United States Artists. Currently, in addition to his work at Spectrum, he is on the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC) executive board, and is working on his memoir.

Frances Chung
Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Frances Chung has spent her career at San Francisco Ballet, which she joined in 2001 and where she has been a principal dancer since 2009. She has performed a wide array of full-length classical roles, as well as leading parts in ballets by Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, William Forsythe, Wayne McGregor, Jerome Robbins, Helgi Tomasson, Christopher Wheeldon, and more; she has created roles in ballets by Forsythe, Justin Peck, McGregor, and Wheeldon, among others. Chung received the Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Achievement in Performance, was a prizewinner at the Prix de Lausanne, and earned the top honor of a silver medal at the Adeline Genée Awards in London. She is mother to 6 year old Forest and 2 year old Faye.

Mandy Moore
Choreographer, director, and producer Mandy Moore is best known for her groundbreaking work on “So You Think You Can Dance,” Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, and the Academy Award-winning La La Land. A three-time Emmy winner and 13-time nominee, her television credits include “Dancing with the Stars,” “Glee,” and “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist.” She choreographed the films American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook, Babylon, and Snow White; her live stage show work includes the musicals The Heart and the Broadway-bound Dolly: A True Original Musical. Moore is a proud member of the Television Academy and the Academy of Motion Picture, Arts, and Sciences.

Kenny Ortega
The producer, director, and choreographer Kenny Ortega’s career spans decades and generations. He has shaped numerous films, from Dirty Dancing and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off to Newsies and Hocus Pocus to the High School Musical trilogy. He served as Michael Jackson’s creative partner on tours including Dangerous and HIStory, and directed the Jackson documentary This Is It. His work across stage and screen has earned him multiple Emmy, DGA, MTV, NAACP, and Imagen Awards, along with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Currently, Ortega is serving as Executive Producer and story writer for LEGO’s first-ever live-action musical, now filming in London, and developing two new musical theater productions for Broadway, alongside a number of film and television projects.

Lula Washington
Lula Washington, a California native, is co-founder and artistic director of the Lula Washington Dance Theatre, begun in 1980 to create opportunities for dancers of color often overlooked in the mainstream dance world. The company has since danced in more than 150 cities in the United States, as well as in Germany, Spain, Kosovo, Mexico, Canada, China, and Russia. Washington’s many awards include the Minerva Award for women leaders who positively impact humanity, the Spelman College National Alumnae Association’s Sisters Award, the 2011 National Dance Association Heritage Award, the National Education Association’s Carter G. Woodson Memorial Award, and the Ann C. Rosenfield Distinguished Community Partnership Prize for bringing dance to 3,500 school children annually through UCLA’s “Design for Sharing” Program.

Brenda Way and Kimi Okada
Brenda Way is the founder and artistic director of ODC/Dance and creator of the ODC Theater and ODC Dance Commons, community performance and training venues in San Francisco’s Mission District. Way has choreographed more than 100 pieces over the last 53 years. She is a national spokesperson for dance, has been published widely, and has received numerous awards, including Isadora Duncan Dance Awards for both choreography and sustained achievement, the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Helen Crocker Russell Award for Community Leadership. In 2024, Way was inducted into the California Hall of Fame. She holds a Ph.D. in aesthetics and is the mother of four children.

Kimi Okada, a founding member of ODC, is currently its associate choreographer, the director of ODC School, and the director of ODC’s pre-professional teen company. Her work includes more than 30 choreographies for ODC/Dance, as well as commissions and collaborations with numerous other artists and theaters. Okada was nominated for a Tony Award for the Broadway production of Largely New York, which she co-choreographed with Bill Irwin, and received a 2014 Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Choreography for ODC’s Two If by Sea. She has been honored with a California State Legislature Assembly Resolution for choreographic and community contributions.

Chairman’s Award: Debbie Allen
Over the course of a career spanning more than five decades, Debbie Allen has become one of the most influential dance artists and educators of our time. For her extensive body of work, has earned three Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe, five NAACP Image Awards, and a Drama Desk Award; she holds four honorary doctorate degrees and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her directing and producing credits include television classics such as “Fame,” “Scandal,” “Jane the Virgin,” “Empire,” “Insecure,” and “Grey’s Anatomy”—where she also recurs as Dr. Catherine Avery and is currently executive producing director. In 2001, she and her husband Norman Nixon founded the nonprofit Debbie Allen Dance Academy in Los Angeles. The school’s mission is to fill a void for youth who inhabit the spirit of dance and need the opportunity to discover what is possible.

Harkness Promise Awards: Annie Rigney and Micaela Taylor
Annie Rigney and Micaela Taylor are the recipients of the two Harkness Promise Awards, which offer a grant and rehearsal space for innovative young choreographers. Presented in collaboration with the Harkness Foundation for Dance, these awards are generously funded by the Foundation.

Posthumous Awards
Posthumous Dance Magazine Awards will pay tribute to dancer and media personality Stephen “tWitch” Boss; ballerina and choreographer Janet Collins; dancer, choreographer, and educator Lester Horton; and dancer, choreographer, and director Michael Peters.

Stay tuned for Dance Magazine’s December issue to learn more about each of these artists and how they have shaped the dance field.