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Hordes of yellow-coated policemen and even more photographers, with their eager long lenses, greeted arrivals to the Royal Opera House for the presentation of the National Dance Awards. The allusion of the NDA as the dance community’s Brit or Academy awards seemed, momentarily, very real but it was quickly put into place by the realisation that the object of all this attention was Miss Dynamite - a rap star who had slapped a policewoman - emerging from the Magistrates’ Court over the street.
Once inside the Royal Opera House, sanity returned in an instant as guests navigated their way past some glittering latin performances in the foyer whilst, up in the Floral Hall, a conveyor belt of students from RAD, the Rambert School, White Lodge, Central School of Ballet, Arts Ed., Elmhurst and the ENB School kept the audience fully occupied for almost two hours prior to the presentation. A special mention is due to the two Elmhurst students who performed three rotas of Bournonville in front of one of his greatest modern interpreters - Thomas Lund, Principal at the Royal Danish Ballet - and to Jacob Wye and Isaac Lee-Baker of the Royal Ballet School, tremendous ambassadors for the success of the Royal’s outreach programme, ‘A Chance to Dance’, from whence they both came.
Darcey Bussell and youngsters from the Royal Academy of Dancing (RAD)
© John Ross
The awards already firmly embrace musical theatre, classical and contemporary dance and judging by the involvement of leading figures from the world of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ the spread into social dance seems to be inevitable. But despite this burgeoning diversity, it was the home team that came away with most of the prizes: the 2005 National Dance Awards being an appropriate triumph for the Royal Ballet which won five awards and had a hand in the winning of one other. As welcome icing to their cake, the ceremony ended with the presentation of the De Valois Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance to the Royal Ballet’s Artistic Director, Monica Mason. As the audience was reminded of the list of previous winners, I guess that just about everyone present thought that it was perfectly natural for the next to be Miss Mason but, modest as ever, she remained the only one to be surprised when her name was announced.
The ‘House’ was dominated by a politician and, no, I’m not talking about George Galloway in ‘Big Brother’ since, strange to say, the star of the show may well have been the culture minister, David Lammy MP. He was given an acceptably brief 4-minute slot and, even more refreshingly, he fulfilled this requirement, speaking intelligently and sincerely, without notes or any evident briefing. He demonstrated a passion for the job, declaring it to be the “best in government”; he applauded dance as the most diverse sector of the arts and concluded his cameo with the announcement that he is to establish a Dance Forum, as a unifying interface between the dance communities and government. As the Mistress of Ceremonies, Angela Rippon followed the Minister with a plea for more money in the system, “…and not just splashed about willy-nilly…”: notably, the most energetic applause for her comments came from the Minister himself and, unlike so many of his colleagues, Mr Lammy did not use the opportunity of his early contribution to slink away to the other House (no, not the BB one) but stayed, clearly enjoying himself, to the very end.
David Lammy MP, Minister for Culture
© John Ross
Thomas Lund prevented the Royal Ballet’s clean sweep of the awards available to it by winning the Best Male Dancer. He traveled to London by way of Egypt and, accepting his moulded acrylic trophy from Darcey Bussell, he was clearly slightly bemused about a Dane winning a national award in the UK. Very sweetly, his thank-you speech including a special reference to the friend he was staying with in London for the weekend (and you don’t get that at the other awards!).
Marianella Nuñez won The Richard Sherrington Award for Best Female Dancer and Rupert Pennefather pipped his Royal Ballet colleagues, Sarah Lamb and Deirdre Chapman, to win the Outstanding Artist (Classical). The Royal Ballet also picked up the Company Prize for Outstanding Classical Repertoire and completing its haul, Christopher Newton won the prize for Best Choreography (Classical) for his restoration of ‘Sylvia’, touchingly accepting his trophy “….on behalf of Sir Fred”. Russell Maliphant won the equivalent award for Best Modern Choreography for ‘Broken Fall’, which premiered with the Royal Ballet, and other works presented with Sylvie Guillem at Sadler’s Wells.
Christopher Newton with the Best Choreography Classical presented by Rafael Bonachela
© John Ross
The Outstanding Artist (Modern) was Akram Khan, his third award at the NDA; The Rambert Dance Company won the Company Prize for Outstanding Repertoire (Modern); and Peter Darling won the Best Choreography (Musical Theatre) award for ‘Billy Elliot’. The Working Title Billy Elliot Award for boys aged 11-16 (an incongruous – but clearly important - award in the context of all the others) was presented to a young tap dancer, Kristopher Spencer, and the Dance UK Industry Award, now named in tribute to Jane Attenborough – who lost her life in the Tsunami – was presented by her brother to the genial and unassuming Brendan Keaney, Director of the Greenwich Dance Agency. When Carlos Acosta stepped up to present the trophy for the Best Foreign Dance Company, many people thought that this was an automatic cue for an award to the Cuban National Ballet but it was the Australian Ballet’s name that Carlos spoke.
Ballet.co and Dance UK sponsor the Audience Award which was split into two categories. Once again, Northern Ballet Theatre won the award for large companies whilst the Motionhouse Dance Theatre picked up the award for smaller companies. Both companies clearly care about their audience, taking significant lengths to get their feedback and it was great to see these efforts rewarded by their customers’ obvious loyalty.
Dame Beryl Grey congratulates Monica Mason for receiving the De Valois award for Outstanding Achievements in Dance
© John Ross
In accepting the De Valois Award, Monica Mason said that on her promotion to Artistic Director she had acquired a rather surly portrait of Dame Ninette from the archives to place on her office wall and every day she was reminded of her predecessor’s dedication and energy through this striking, albeit unsmiling, image: closing proceedings, Angela Rippon said that after this day of triumph for her beloved Company, Madam might now be smiling!
The Winners of The Critics' Circle Nastional Dance Awards 2005
© John Ross
The overwhelming sense of these awards was of the diversity, vibrance and energy of dance - although one might not have sensed this from the rather morose youngsters who slept their way through most of the afternoon from their vantage point in the ‘Floral Hall’ Restaurant. Since they started in 2001 – with just five chairs, as recalled by Yvonne Sherrington – they have grown at a prolific rate and the logistics of their organisation is clearly now a mammoth task, carried out by a few stalwarts (including our own Editor, Bruce Marriott). At this rate of growth, it won’t be that long before the hordes of photographers and police are really there for the red carpet walk.
This page originally mentioned the word "Oscars". Such references have been willingly removed in order to respect the rights of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and its trade mark. 17.06.2006
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