2024 National Dance Awards announced in London
The Winners of the 2024 National Dance Awards were announced at a ceremony at the Barbican Centre in London. It is the 25th anniversary of the Awards.
The awards – voted upon by the 60 dance critics who are members of the Critics’ Circle – are for performances seen between 1 January and 31 December 2024.
Diversity of dance genre was the big winner in this year’s awards, with the Dancing Times Award for Best Male Dancer being jointly awarded to a hip-hop performer (Tommy Franzén) and a kathak dancer (Aakash Odedra). It was the first time that this award has been won by a dancer in either genre. Franzén also won the award for Outstanding Male Modern Performance, and Odedra won the Outstanding Male Classical Performance Award, the first time in 25 years that this award has been won by a dancer outside of ballet.
The premier award, the De Valois Award for Outstanding Achievement, was presented to Dame Siobhan Davies CBE, one of the leading contemporary choreographers in the UK and the founder and director of Siobhan Davies Dance and the Siobhan Davies Studios in South London.
The choreography awards both went to North America – Kyle Abraham won the Best Modern Choreography for the second successive year for his Love Letter (on shuffle) performed by New York City Ballet; and Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite won her fourth NDA for Angel’s Atlas, performed by National Ballet of Canada. Both performances were seen at London’s Sadler’s Wells theatre. The lighting designer for Angel’s Atlas, Tom Visser, won the Outstanding Creative Contribution Award.
The Royal Ballet won the award for Outstanding Company in 2004 and 2005, but was nominated in every succeeding year without winning… until now. “It’s been a long time coming,” said the Chair, Graham Watts, in presenting the award to artistic director, Kevin O’Hare. Caspar Lench of The Royal Ballet won the Emerging Artist Award and The Principles of Classical Dance, a co-production between The BalletBoyz and The Royal Ballet, won the Marquee TV Award for Best Dance Film.
Erina Takahashi, lead principal at English National Ballet, won the Best Female Dancer Award and Beatrice Parma, a principal at Birmingham Royal Ballet, won the Outstanding Female Classical Performance Award. Ballet Black – through its BBonFilm brand – won the Best Short Dance Film for Mthuthuzeli November’s Burn from the Inside.
Acosta Danza won the Best Mid-Scale Company award, and London City Ballet won the Best Independent Company Award after only its first season. Hannah Shepherd won the Outstanding Female Modern Performance Award for Ruination by Ben Duke for Lost Dog.
2024 National Dance Awards
DE VALOIS AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT
Dame Siobhan Davies
DANCING TIMES AWARD FOR BEST MALE DANCER
Tommy Franzen
Aakash Odedra
BEST FEMALE DANCER
Erina Takahashi
[sponsored by Tendu]
STEF STEFANOU AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING COMPANY
The Royal Ballet
BEST MID-SCALE COMPANY
Acosta Danza
[sponsored by Level Law]
BEST INDEPENDENT COMPANY
London City Ballet
[sponsored by International Arts & Cultural Projects Ltd]
BEST CLASSICAL CHOREOGRAPHY
Crystal Pite for Angels’ Atlas
[sponsored by The Ballet Association]
BEST MODERN CHOREOGRAPHY
Kyle Abraham for Love Letter (on shuffle)
[sponsored by Harlequin Floors]
EMERGING ARTIST AWARD
Caspar Lench
OUTSTANDING FEMALE MODERN PERFORMANCE
Hannah Shepherd in Ruination
[sponsored by Fern Potter]
OUTSTANDING MALE MODERN PERFORMANCE
Tommy Franzen in The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party & Minotaur
[sponsored by Danza and Danza International]
OUTSTANDING FEMALE CLASSICAL PERFORMANCE
Beatrice Parma in La Fille mal gardée
[sponsored by Lee McLernon]
OUTSTANDING MALE CLASSICAL PERFORMANCE
Aakash Odedra in Mehek
[sponsored by the London Ballet Circle]
OUTSTANDING CREATIVE CONTRIBUTION
Tom Visser
[sponsored by Celeste Fenichel]
BEST DANCE FILM
The Principles of Classical Ballet
[sponsored by Marquee TV]
BEST SHORT DANCE FILM
Burn from the Inside
[sponsored by Marquee TV]
The winners came from a list of 88 nominations covering every dance genre and the nominees came from a record list of almost 400 recommendations from the dance critics.
Announcing the awards, which were hosted by broadcaster and journalist, Samira Ahmed, the Chair of the National Dance Awards, Graham Watts OBE, said, “it was a very strong year with great nominations from across the wide spectrum of dance. Every critic’s recommendation was good enough to be a nomination; and every nominee would have been a deserving winner”.
Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Italian ballerina Carla Fracci.
Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.
He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.
