HMS Media’s “Jump Rhythm Jazz Project: Getting There” has won four Chicago-Midwest Emmy Awards
HMS Media’s critically acclaimed performance documentary on choreographer Billy Siegenfeld and his groundbreaking dance company Jump Rhythm Jazz Project, has won four Chicago-Midwest Emmy Awards. HMS co-founder Matt Hoffman took home two statues for Outstanding Director and Outstanding Editor. Todd L. Clark won the Emmy for Excellence in Lighting Design, and Siegenfeld and his entire troupe of dancers received the Emmy for Excellence in On-Camera Performance.
The critically acclaimed “Jump Rhythm Jazz Project: Getting There” is HMS Media’s most Emmy-nominated show ever!
We’re thrilled to announce that Jump Rhythm Jazz Project: Getting There, our critically acclaimed performance documentary on Billy Siegenfeld and his groundbreaking dance company Jump Rhythm Jazz Project, has been nominated for six Chicago-Midwest Emmy Awards. These nominations, announced October 2, 2007 in advance of the November 18, 2007 awards ceremony, bring HMS’ total over its nearly twenty-year history to thirty-six nominations; nine of those have been winners.
In addition to being nominated for Outstanding Documentary of Cultural Significance (HMS co-founder Scott Silberstein was the producer), Getting There was also nominated for Outstanding Directing and Editing (both accomplished by HMS co-founder Matt Hoffman), Videography (HMS Video Division Manager John Ford, Joe Lukawksi and Gino Russano), Lighting (Todd L. Clark) and Excellence in On-Camera Performance (Billy Siegenfeld, Sarah Bowen, Jackie Brenner, Brandi Coleman, Jeannie Hill, Jordan Kahl, Jodi Kurtze, Glenn Leslie, Leo Lamontagne, Corey Yarnell Lozier, Amanda Benzin, Kristina Kasper and Heidi Malnar).
When first broadcast on WTTW in May of this year, The Chicago Tribune wrote, “Jump Rhythm Jazz Project: Getting There, is highly enjoyable… thoughtfully shot… amply demonstrates the troupe’s mix of effervescent material and sly, backhanded commentary… offers a glimpse of the complexities involved in Siegenfeld’s style and the thoughtful reasoning behind it.”
Windy City Times added, “Jump Rhythm Jazz Project: Getting There, gives the viewer a unique look inside the rehearsal process of Jump Rhythm Jazz Project, Siegenfeld’s thoughts on dance and his creative inspiration. Both strangers to the company and longtime fans will be surprised and delighted to see a side of the company to which most people are never privy.”
Congratulations to everyone involved with Jump Rhythm Jazz Project: Getting There. If these Emmy nominations prove anything, it’s that this was a true team effort, and we are so proud of our team!
Billy Sunday is coming to broadcast television.
Chicago White Stockings outfielder-turned-evangelical-preacher Billy Sunday was born in 1892, and went on to set an early record for stolen bases before becoming one of the country’s most famous and financially successful religious speakers. Chicago dancer turned choreographer Ruth Page was born seven years later and turned the dance world on its ear by creating dramatic, cartoonish ballets that featured talking dancers and such controversial subjects as, well, a Chicago White Stocking outfielder turned evangelical preacher.
In 1947, Page’s Billy Sunday created a stir in Paris before doing the same in the US. Sixty years later, the Ruth Page Foundation is presenting Venetia Stifler’s restaging of Page’s landmark ballet, and it will be the subject of HMS Media’s newest broadcast special. The ballet stars acclaimed dancer/choreographer Harrison McEldowney in the title role with such stellar Chicago dancers as Stephanie Martinez, Kenny Ingram, John Ross, Amy Wilkinson, Jamie Farrell and Marya Guittierez.
The entire ballet will be presented in the one-hour special, which will also go into the hearts and minds of dancers as they contemplate what it means to mix entertainment, politics and religion across one hundred years of American history. Shot on location at Northeastern Illinois University, HMS’ newest High Definition special will air this September; keep coming back to our website for details.
Our most recent broadcast debut on WTTW received terrific press coverage and critical acclaim by the local press.
“Jump Rhythm Jazz Project: Getting There is highly enjoyable,” wrote Sid Smith in the Chicago Tribune, describing it as “thoughtfully shot.” He went on to say that it “amply demonstrates the troupe’s mix of effervescent material and sly, backhanded commentary (and) offers a glimpse of the complexities involved in Siegenfeld’s style and the thoughtful reasoning behind it. Somehow, you just know, Fred Astaire and the Nicholas Brothers are smiling.”
The Windy City Times also raved, “Jump Rhythm Jazz Project: Getting There gives the viewer a unique look inside the rehearsal process of Jump Rhythm Jazz Project, Billy Siegenfeld’s thoughts on dance and his creative inspiration. Both strangers to the company and longtime fans will be surprised and delighted to see a side of the company to which most people are never privy.” Look for encore broadcasts on WTTW; details will be posted here at HMS Media’s website. >
HMS Media has been called to New York for several Broadway productions.
As if producing multicamera shoots and creating promotional television for national Broadway tours like Mamma Mia, Wicked and The Producers wasn’st exciting enough, in the last several months HMS has been called to New York to produce similar projects for many landmark Broadway productions. After working with A Chorus Line, Company and High Fidelity at the end of last year, HMS spent much of this past spring in New York, working on The Year of Magical Thinking with Vanessa Redgrave, A Moon for the Misbegotten with Kevin Spacey, The Color Purple with Fantasia, the multi-Tony nominated Coram Boy and Deuce with Angela Lansbury and Marian Seldes. It was a thrilling stretch for HMS’s creative team and we send our sincere thanks to the many people who were responsible for bringing us to New York for shoot after shoot; we’re happy to call New York our new home away from home!