First of all, many thanks to all those who took part - a higher turn-out than in the last couple of years, and lots of interesting views put forward.
The Results
Best production overall: The Royal Ballet's Manon
Not for the first time, and probably not the last, either. Johann Kobborg's new production of La Sylphide for the Royal Ballet came next, with the RB's La Fille mal Gardée in third place.
Best new production: La Sylphide, by quite some way.
It's good to see new choreography in second and third positions, respectively from Alastair Marriott at the RB in Tanglewood and Mark Baldwin at Rambert in Constant Speed.
Best revival: The Royal Ballet's Sylvia this time...
...ahead of two more RB pieces, Manon and David Bintley's Tombeaux.
Best staging: La Sylphide again.
Second was Les Liaisons Dangeureuses, with much admiration for Lez Brotherston's setting, and the RB's Sylvia came third.
Best home company: The Royal Ballet won this category again.
It always has, in all the years we've asked this question; but there was support as well for Birmingham Royal Ballet and for Rambert.
Best visiting company: The Ballet Nacional de Cuba
This is where it gets interesting. Every year up to now, this category has been won by whichever of the big Russian companies had been seen in London: this time the Kirov only came second, and even then only a split-vote ahead of the group of dancers from the Royal Danish Ballet.
Best male dancer: Thomas Lund of the Royal Danish Ballet
Again, this is the first time since Igor Zelensky won our very first poll back in 1997 that a non-Royal Ballet dancer has won this category. Johan Kobborg and Carlos Acosta, who have swapped the title between them for the last four years, came second and third.
Best female dancer: For the second year running, it's Zenaida Yanowsky, by a long way.
A clean sweep for the Royal Ballet, with Marianela Nunez next and Tamara Rojo third.
Best partnership: Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg came out top for the third successive year...
but it was by no means as clear cut this time: 25 different partnerships were nominated! Agnes Oaks and Thomas Edur came second, followed by Marianela Nunez and Carlos Acosta jointly with Zenaida Yanowsky and Kenneth Greve.
Most promising male dancer: A landslide for Steven McRae of the Royal Ballet, with more votes than for any other individual dancer in the poll.
Not much of a surprise to see Rupert Pennefather, also of the RB, coming second, but nice to see BRB's Tyrone Singleton - once a poster on this board - in third place.
Most promising female dancer: A fairly predictable first place, I think, for Sarah Lamb of the Royal Ballet.
Joint second were English National Ballet's Maria Kochetkova and the RB's Caroline Duprot.
Worst production: Les Liaisons Dangereuses gets the wooden spoon this time, but only by the smallest possible margin from Christopher Bruce's Three Songs Two Voices for the Royal Ballet.
Comments
It was the year of the Danes
We've had Russian years before but this is the first time so many Danish names have appeared in both votes and comments: Johann Kobborg's production of Bournonville's La Sylphide won more votes than any other dance work, Thomas Lund won the best male dancer category, and Kobborg himself (with Cojocaru) and Kenneth Greve (with Yanowsky) both featured in the best partnership list.
It was the year the Kirov didn't win
I don't suppose they're trembling in their shoes at the views of a fairly small sample of their audience, but it is a real change for us: has their novelty value worn off, so that they're now just another company rather than a longed for, and rare, treat? Only their Forsythe programme and their new young dancer Evgenya Obraztsova attracted more than a couple of votes. It will be very interesting to see what happens next year.
It was a year of diversity
Twenty five pairs put forward for the 'best partnership' category, twenty nine pieces suggested for 'best revival', many more nominations than before for the Paris Opera Ballet - even the brickbats for 'worst production' were flung more widely than usual. There's warm praise in the 'comments' sections for a wide variety of people and performances not so far mentioned: Akram Khan for anything, Rojo's Marguerite, Ivan Putrov in Pierrot Lunaire, Alastair Spalding's management of Sadler's Wells, Jonathan Cope, Ashley Page's work with Scottish Ballet, the excellent form of the current Rambert group.... a lot of very positive views. And not much negative this year - maybe we've all made our views known on the postings pages through the year.
The Prize
This year's prize for the most interesting entry goes to Ami Shah. Please contact Bruce, Ami!
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