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Best Dance Company

Dominic Walsh Dance Theater

Dominic Walsh Dance Theater isn't yet ten years old, but it's already a fixture as one of the great contemporary dance companies of our time. The cadre of eight dancers master new ways of moving under the tutelage of Walsh, a longtime principal with the Houston Ballet and 2008 winner of the prestigious Princess Grace Award for choreography. Walsh pushes the notion of "classical ballet" to its breaking point in his own choreography, blending matchless technical precision with distinct and unashamed sensuality. Costumes are often unembellished, accenting and celebrating the human form. This is truly ballet for the twenty-first century.

Best Local Author

Roger Wood, Ph.D.

Roger Wood gets tapped as local author this year for his entire body of work. There was the 2003 title Down in Houston: Bayou City Blues (Jack and Doris Smothers Series in Texas History, Life and Culture), a look at Houston's especially rich history of blues, a collaborative effort with photographer James Fraher. In 2006, it was Texas Zydeco, another Wood and Fraher project, this time capturing the state's colorful heritage of "la-la" music. Most recently it was House of Hits: The Story of Houston's Gold Star/SugarHill Recording Studios, which Wood co-wrote with Andy Bradley, SugarHill's longtime audio engineer. For being Houston's prolific music historian, Wood gets a big "woop, woop."

Best Dance Party

A Fistful of Soul at the Mink

There is nothing quite like starting off your weekend with a cold Red Stripe in one hand and a sweaty dance partner in the other, while you hear the smooth sounds of early ska, mento, rocksteady, and the best bedrock R&B at the monthly A Fistful Of Soul parties in the front room of the Mink on Main. DJs and Houston scene vets Stewart Anderson and John Baldwin lead the parties, which usually end up fogging the windows of the bar up, regardless of the weather outside. Be on the lookout for special guest DJs from around the Lone Star State as well. Admission is always free, drink specials abound, and the dancing is always face to face. Now if they could only make more room out on the front sidewalk for all the vintage scooters that show up.

Best Band Stage Show

Wild Moccasins

Even without the confetti and streamers they are fond of sometimes, Wild Moccasins easily put on Houston's best stage show gig after gig. They even baked cupcakes for their fans once. Simply put, no other band in town that we can think of has so much fun playing together. The Moccasins, whose 2010 LP Skin Collision Past and 2009 EP Microscopic Metronomes were released by New West Records earlier this year (a proper New West debut is in the works), always look like they're having a ball, delivering their bubbly indie-pop tunes with the kind of obvious chemistry that only comes to bands who are best friends on and off stage. The Moccasins turn every show into a party, and everyone's invited.

Best Artist Collective

Box 13 Art Space

There's a reason why the 2011 Texas Biennial chose Box 13 as Houston's only space for the month-long art showcase. The East End gallery and co-op, for three-plus years, has boasted a wing-dinger of a reputation for contemporary artists showcasing left-of-field works. The Harrisburg Boulevard warehouse, which used to house a sewing-machine factory, is one of the city's best artist-run non-profits and features creative types such as Elaine Bradford, Dennis Nance and Jenny Schlief showcasing traditional wall pieces, avant-garde installations and experimental performance art. Along with the Biennial gig, Box 13 was the Bayou City's only venue to be chosen for "Low Lives 3 — International Festival of Live Networked Performance."

Best Latin Club

Club Tropicana

Salsa hot spots come and go, but Tropicana will always be there when you need to dance away the night. Inside an unassuming strip mall storefront on Fondren, you'll find a Casablanca-esque nightclub of dark reds and deep mahogany. The hardwood dance floor is spacious, and the salseros who wear it down are the city's best. Weekends are a blast at Tropicana, when you can groove to the bachata, meringue, salsa and chacha of live Latin bands. We love Tropicana for its mindblowingly diverse crowd. In a single night, you can twirl your way through the arms of a United Nations league of salseros, all brought together by the desire to dance.

Best New Movement

Houston's New Hip-Hop Class

Houston is a hip-hop city through and through. We birthed the Geto Boys, UGK, Slim Thug and Paul Wall, just to name a select few. But in the past two or three years, the scene has seen an influx of new blood, raised not just on hip-hop and R&B but also on punk rock and metal. That intermingling has given us new superstars in the making like Fat Tony, B L A C K I E and Ill Liad, who add a tint of spikiness and an old-school thrash sensibility to their beats and verses. The one to make the biggest splash so far has been the jet-setting Fat Tony, who began playing smallish shows upstairs at Boondocks and graduated to opening for the Wu-Tang Clan and Snoop Dogg in the past year. Meanwhile, B L A C K I E keeps digging into more and more industrial sounds, becoming more of a noise act in the grand tradition of Houston legends like Rusted Shut, and Ill Liad is back after a personal and spiritual detour with new album Dope 6ic.

Best CD By Houston Expat

Hayes Carll, KMAG YOYO

Opening with "Stomp and Holler," Woodlands native Hayes Carll's KMAG YOYO is one of the most ass-shaking and gut-wrenching albums to come from a Texan's brain-casing this year. The follow-up to 2008's critically adored Trouble in Mind, February's KMAG YOYO (soldier slang for "kiss my ass guys, you're on your own") pulls no punches when it comes to politics or romance. The title song details a crooked enlisted man's government-funded LSD trips, and "Another Like You" is an Urban Cowboy tale for the 21st century, complete with references to The View and spray-on tans. The second-to-last track, "Grateful for Christmas," is destined to become the go-to fractured holiday anthem for the foreseeable future, or until Robert Ellis writes his own.

Best New Arts Venue

Obsidian Art Space

Founders Tom Stell and Leighza Walker started the nonprofit Obsidian Art Space as a way to promote original work, and they've done just that. Obsidian Art Space already has hosted such performances as the world premiere of Selkie, A Sea Tale by Divergence Vocal Theater. The space also played host to August in August (a presentation of work by August Strindberg), The Great Storm (new plays based on Hurricane Ike) and, most recently, A Midsummer Night's Dream — The Unhatched Project by Unhinged Productions (a gender-bending take on the Shakespeare classic).

Best Bartender

Alex Gregg, Anvil Bar & Refuge

Alex Gregg is the epitome of the classic bartender archetype: rolled-up sleeves, a broad and genuine smile and a can-do attitude. Gregg will mix up absolutely any drink you can fathom, and a few more of his own creation. The ultra-creative cocktail menu at Anvil is peppered with his inventions, but that doesn't mean the man can't also put together a soulful and straightforward Manhattan. There's no pretense here, either; Gregg is as friendly and open as they come. So put yourself in his hands and let this Renaissance man (did we mention he's a talented photographer, too?) captain your cocktail ship.

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