1998 Poll entries Last Years Poll Results As usual we start by thanking everyone who voted in our poll. The more contributions, the more representative are the results. Some extremely predictable results this year, and one or two real surprises. And the prize is a signed copy of Bill Cooper's 1999 Calendar for BRB. The winner is anounced at the end...

Best new production: Babel Index,
the site specific piece shown at the British Library
...with Darshan Singh Buller's Planted Seeds and Ashley Page's Cheating, Lying, Stealing coming joint second.

Best revival: Rambert's Cruel Garden
...and another tie for runner-up between MacMillan's Las Hermanas and Forsythe's in the middle for the RB.

Best staging: BRB's ever popular Nutcracker
...with Cruel Garden in second place and Forsythe's Enemy in the Figure third.

Best company: Birmingham Royal Ballet
...with The Royal Ballet in second place and Ballet Frankfurt in third.

Best male dancer: Irek Mukhamdov
...by a mile; nearly five times as many votes as his nearest rivals! Interesting that last year's winner, Igor Zelensky, only just made it into the list this time.

Best female dancer: Viviana Durante
...with Yoshida second and Guillem and Wildor equal third.

Best partnership: Durante and Mukhamedov
...with Guillem/Cope and Oaks/Edur tied for second.

Most promising male dancer: Edward Watson of the Royal Ballet
...Shi Ning Liu came second, followed by BRB's Robert Parker.

Most promising female dancer: Mara Galeazzi
...with a triple tie for second place between BRB's Nao Sakuma, Scottish Ballet's Ari Takahashi and Gillian Revie of the Royal Ballet.

Worst production: Ashley Page's Sawdust and Tinsel
...beating Tharp's Mr Wordly Wise by a short head.

Worst casting: this is not a popular category, and with so few votes cast it doesn't really seem fair to name a 'winner'.

Amalgamating the Eye Openers and Special Mentions, as people seem to have used them more or less interchangeably, we see a lot of support for individual dancers. Mukhamedov and Durante, as well as winning the individual and partnership categories, are mentioned constantly for their Manons, and Guillem - also in Manon - and Sarah Wildor in Rake's Progress had the most entries for individual performances. Mara Galeazzi's talents opened the most eyes, and others getting multiple mentions were Yoshida (for practically anything), Bussell, Morera, Bull, Revie and Genesia Rosato.

Causing the most negative reaction by far was the Royal Ballet crisis - lots of criticisms of management and the government for letting things get to this state and for not sorting it out more quickly; no criticism - lots of praise, indeed - for the dancers, who struggled through it all without letting too much of the stress show on stage. Scottish Ballet were also mentioned for their 'indomitability' in a difficult year. Northern Ballet Theatre didn't actually win anything but they got lots of support under different headings!

And the prize? This year we decided to award it to the person whose votes came nearest to the overall result: so the winner is Emma Stewart, all of whose nominations came either first or second in their category. Well done Emma!