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On yet another surprisingly mild January afternoon, the only wind was one of change breezing through the National Dance Awards, and the only chill provided by an appropriate touch of frost in Angela Rippon’s sharp retort about funding to a particularly lightweight, speech by the Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP, the Minister for Culture. To be fair, Mrs Hodge hasn’t been in the job long and openly admits to having had no prior affinity with dance – and unlike many in her profession she chose not to make an early escape but stayed to the very end. But here was a unique opportunity to outline key messages for the future of dance within the government’s agenda and – to put it as mildly as the day’s weather– it was fudged.
Change came about in a seismic shift towards diversity and inclusiveness, which cannot have escaped the attention of a minister whose constituency duties include grappling with some of the most significant social problems of the inner city. Where, two years ago, these awards had been dominated by the classical establishment at home in the Royal Opera House, with the Royal Ballet winning six trophies, there was a distinct – and very welcome – eclecticism in the distribution of the awards for 2007. The nominations in almost every category exemplified this widening scope, but there were three award recipients where the decision could truly be described as breaking the mould.
Celeste Dandeker, the Candoco co founder, and recipient of the De Valois Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance and also the Dance UK Industry Award
© John Ross
Leading the way was the indefatigable Celeste Dandeker, the co-founder of CandoCo, the dance phenomenon that has pioneered inclusiveness in dance, melding disabled and non-disabled performers into a company that is recognised across the globe for its acclaimed artistry and energy. Dandeker was lured to the Ceremony on the pretext of presenting an award to someone else and was relatively speechless when Adam Benjamin (her co-founder of CandoCo) read her name as the winner of the Dance UK Industry Award, a shock that was doubled when, later, she received the ultimate accolade of the De Valois Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance, coupled with the presentation of an enormous bronze firefly sculpted by her old friend, Tom Merrifield. In a society where disabled sport is still segregated as the poor relation of its able-bodied counterparts, it does dance great credit to reward someone who has done so much to instil and enhance the culture of integration throughout the art.
In a similar vein, the Critics’ Circle acknowledged the wonderful work of Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Desmond Kelly and Marion Tait, seen by millions in the TV programme ‘Ballet Hoo! Ballet changed my life’, that has so profoundly improved the lives of the many young people who were caught up and nurtured in the performance experience of a very special ‘Romeo & Juliet’. Listening to Kelly describe what has happened subsequently to some of these young people proved beyond doubt how dance can inspire and lead to lives less ordinary, and credit to the dance critics’ for recognising this profound contribution with the first-ever Special Award, presented by the evergreen Patron of the Awards, Dame Beryl Grey. Dame Beryl also gets to give her own Patron’s Award each year which, for 2007, had already been presented to Darcey Bussell on the eve of her move to Australia at the end of last year.
Marion Tait with Sir Peter Wright and Desmond Kelly with the National Dance Award Special Award for Ballet Hoo!
© John Ross
The third great change was to see the Dancing Times Award for the Best Male Dancer of the year given, for the very first time, to a leading contemporary performer, the remarkable Jonathan Goddard of the Richard Alston Dance Company. To further convey acknowledgement of dance’s wider spectrum the other nominees included the New York tap dancer, Savion Glover; and in the Spotlight male category there was deserved acknowledgement for the exceptionally balletic, neo-classical bharatanatyam dancer, Ash Mukherjee.
Jonathan Goddard - Richard Alston Dance Company - receives the Dancing Times Award for Best Male Dancer
© John Ross
In the Classical Dance categories, these awards were another great success for the Bolshoi Ballet, building on their two triumphs from the previous year by winning three for their glorious season at the Coliseum in August 2007: it was no surprise that they held onto their crown for the Best Foreign Dance Company, nor that their new ballet megastar, Natalia Osipova should win the Richard Sherrington Award for Best Female Dancer, closely followed by a Spotlight Award for her exciting partner, Ivan Vasiliev. Osipova herself travelled across the Channel, on the closing day of the company’s season in Paris, to accept her award with a beguiling youthful charm.
Although honoured with eight nominations – apart from the Special Award to Darcey - the Royal Ballet had to be content with just a single award, won by its new Resident Choreographer, Wayne McGregor, who endured five fruitless nominations before winning an NDA in 2006 for the best Modern Choreography. His crossover credentials have now been recognised with the award for the Best Classical Choreography in ‘Chroma’ which is shortly to be repeated at the Royal Opera House in the current season. There was also the Working Title Billy Elliot Prize given to a Royal Ballet School student, Brandon Lawrence, who ironically will enjoy – as part of his prize – a day’s masterclass with Wayne Eagling at English National Ballet.
Natalia Osipova winning the Best Female Dancer Award.
© John Ross
Michael Keegan-Dolan won for Best Modern Choreography in his very dramatic physical theatre work ‘The Bull’; Kialea-Nadine Williams (who has now left these shores for a new life in Australia) won the Spotlight Award for a Modern Female Artist for her work with the Phoenix Dance Company (most notably her tour de force performance of Jane Dudley’s ‘Harmonica Breakdown’); Dane Hurst – of the Rambert Dance Company - won the Spotlight Modern equivalent for men; and Carol-Anne Millar from Birmingham Royal Ballet won the Classical Female Artist Spotlight Award. Finally the two awards for the most outstanding repertoire went to Scottish Ballet in the classical division and an extraordinarily, and unnecessarily, humble Henri Oguike picked up the prize for his eponymous dance company in the Modern category.
The 20007 Critics' Circle National Dance Award Winners
© John Ross
No awards ceremony is without a hitch and even here, the no-show of a guest presenter caused a momentary hiccup that was quickly repaired by the swift appearance of a more than eminent substitute (the great dancer and ballet master, David Wall). This seamless sleight of hand is just one more sign that the Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards continue to grow from strength to strength, gaining in maturity and organisational elegance from year-to year as THE dance awards that matter.
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