Nominees announced for the 15th National Dance Awards

The Dance Section of the Critics' Circle has announced the nominations for the 15th National Dance Awards.

The Critics' Circle is composed of five sections: Music, Theatre, Film, Dance and Visual Arts and Architecture. Its aims are to promote the art of criticism, to uphold its integrity in practice and to support the advancement of the arts. Currently there are over 400 members, mostly from the UK, the majority of whom write regularly for national and regional newspapers and magazines.

Winners will be announced at a lunchtime ceremony in London on Monday, 26th January 2015. The event will also play host to the De Valois Award for Outstanding Achievement and the Dance UK Industry Award, given in memory of Jane Attenborough, for both of which there are no prior nominations.

The National Dance Awards have been organised by the Dance Section of the Critics' Circle in each year since 2000 to celebrate the vigour and variety of Britain's thriving dance culture. They are the only awards given by the body of professional dance critics in the UK. The Dance Section of the Critics' Circle is composed of more than 50 dance writers and critics.

Graham Watts OBE, chairman of the Dance Section, said:

These short-listed nominees come from a long list of almost 400 dancers, choreographers and companies and so the final shortlist already represents the elite of the last year. The competition was so tight that, unsurprisingly, we were unable to whittle the finalists down to four in three of the categories.

This year sees the introduction of a new award for Emerging Artist, which saw over 40 nominations from the dance critics.

It is an especially good year for The Royal Ballet and English National Ballet, which enjoy 20 nominations between them and ENB has the distinction of having two dancers nominated for performances of the same role. Arthur Pita is nominated in both choreography categories and Akram Khan is nominated for both choreographing and dancing in ‘Dust' for ENB. Two British ballet dancers, now performing for companies overseas, Alexander Jones and Xander Parish, are both nominated for performances in the UK. While there are many returning award winners as nominees, there are also many who are nominated for the first time.

The Awards Committee wishes to express grateful thanks to our sponsors, without whom the event would not be possible; and to the body of dance critics across the UK for giving their time to ensure the best possible list of nominees; and, above all, the companies, choreographers and performers for giving us such a rich variety of choice.

The nominations in the Dance category for this year are:

DANCING TIMES AWARD FOR BEST MALE DANCER
Jonathan GODDARD (MARK BRUCE COMPANY, NEW MOVEMENT COLLECTIVE & HEADSPACEDANCE)
Vadim MUNTAGIROV (ENGLISH NATIONAL BALLET & THE ROYAL BALLET)
Steven McRAE (THE ROYAL BALLET)
Edward WATSON (THE ROYAL BALLET)

GRISHKO AWARD FOR BEST FEMALE DANCER
Alina COJOCARU (ENGLISH NATIONAL BALLET)
Marianela NUÑEZ (THE ROYAL BALLET)
Natalia OSIPOVA (THE ROYAL BALLET)
Diana VISHNEVA (MARIINSKY BALLET)

STEF STEFANOU AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING COMPANY
ENGLISH NATIONAL BALLET
MARK MORRIS DANCE GROUP
NORTHERN BALLET
STUTTGART BALLET
TANZTHEATER WUPPERTAL PINA BAUSCH

BEST INDEPENDENT COMPANY
BALLET BLACK
HEADSPACEDANCE
MARK BRUCE COMPANY
NEW MOVEMENT COLLECTIVE

BEST CLASSICAL CHOREOGRAPHY
David DAWSON (‘THE HUMAN SEASONS' for THE ROYAL BALLET)
Arthur PITA (‘A DREAM WITHIN A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM' for BALLET BLACK)
Liam SCARLETT (‘NO MAN'S LAND' for ENGLISH NATIONAL BALLET)
Christopher WHEELDON (‘THE WINTER'S TALE' for THE ROYAL BALLET)

BEST MODERN CHOREOGRAPHY
Richard ALSTON (‘THE BRITTEN BILL- HÖLDERLIN FRAGMENTS/ ILLUMINATIONS /PHAEDRA' for RICHARD ALSTON DANCE COMPANY)
Mark BRUCE (‘DRACULA' for MARK BRUCE COMPANY)
Akram KHAN (‘DUST' for ENGLISH NATIONAL BALLET)
Arthur PITA (‘FACADA' in SOLO FOR TWO for ARDANI ARTISTS)
Crystal PITE (‘THE TEMPEST REPLICA' for KIDD PIVOT)

EMERGING ARTIST AWARD
Francesca HAYWARD (Dancer – THE ROYAL BALLET)
Drew McONIE (Choreographer – THE McONIE COMPANY)
Kevin POEUNG (Dancer – NORTHERN BALLET)
Marcelino SAMBÉ (Dancer – THE ROYAL BALLET)
Alexander WHITLEY (Choreographer – ALEXANDER WHITLEY DANCE COMPANY)

OUTSTANDING FEMALE PERFORMANCE (CLASSICAL)
Alina COJOCARU (as Medora in ‘LE CORSAIRE' for ENGLISH NATIONAL BALLET)
Francesca HAYWARD (in ‘RHAPSODY' for THE ROYAL BALLET)
Natalia OSIPOVA (in the title role as ‘GISELLE' for THE ROYAL BALLET)
Kristina SHAPRAN (as Terpsichore in ‘APOLLO' for MARIINSKY BALLET)

OUTSTANDING MALE PERFORMANCE (CLASSICAL)
Yonah ACOSTA (as Conrad in ‘LE CORSAIRE' for ENGLISH NATIONAL BALLET)
Alexander JONES (as Petruchio in ‘THE TAMING OF THE SHREW' for STUTTGART BALLET)
Vadim MUNTAGIROV (as Conrad in ‘LE CORSAIRE' for ENGLISH NATIONAL BALLET)
Xander PARISH (in the title role as ‘APOLLO' for MARIINSKY BALLET

OUTSTANDING FEMALE PERFORMANCE (MODERN)
FANG-YI Sheu (in ‘PRESENT' and ‘TWO x TWO' at SADLER'S WELLS)
Wendy HOUSTOUN (in ‘PACT WITH POINTLESSNESS')
Carys STATON (in ‘STILL CURRENT' for RUSSELL MALIPHANT COMPANY)
Clemmie SVEAAS (in ‘IF PLAY IS PLAY' for HEADSPACEDANCE)

OUTSTANDING MALE PERFORMANCE (MODERN)
Miguel ALTUNAGA (in ‘ROOSTER' for RAMBERT DANCE COMPANY)
Jonathan GODDARD (in the title role as ‘DRACULA' for MARK BRUCE COMPANY)
Akram KHAN (in ‘DUST' for ENGLISH NATIONAL BALLET)
Liam RIDDICK (in ‘ILLUMINATIONS' for RICHARD ALSTON DANCE COMPANY)

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.