The UK’s Critics’ Circle has announced nominations for its annual National Dance Awards.
The winners will be announced at a live ceremony in London on 13 June 2022.
355 companies, choreographers, performers and creative artists were nominated for this year’s awards, with Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell topping the list of individual productions with five nominations, followed by Wayne McGregor’s The Dante Project for The Royal Ballet, with four.
The Royal Ballet tops the list of 25 organisations nominated, with 17 nominations, followed by English National Ballet and Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures who both get seven nominations, Birmingham Royal Ballet with four, and Ballet Black, Scottish Ballet and Yorke Dance Project with three each.
English National Ballet, New Adventures, Northern Ballet, Rambert and The Royal Ballet are all nominated for Outstanding Company. Best female dancer nominees are Momoko Hirata (Birmingham Royal Ballet), Marianela Nuñez (The Royal Ballet), Natalia Osipova (The Royal Ballet), Cira Robinson (Ballet Black) and Erina Takahashi (English National Ballet); and best male dancer nods have been given to Jeffrey Cirio (English National Ballet), Francesco Gabriele Frola (English National Ballet), Brandon Lawrence (Birmingham Royal Ballet), Vadim Muntagirov (The Royal Ballet) and Edward Watson (The Royal Ballet).
To qualify, live and digital performances had to take place between 1 January and 31 December 2021. The nominees are selected by members of the Dance section of the Critics’ Circle, which brings together over 60 dance writers and critics. They are the only awards given by the body of professional dance critics in the UK.
The Chair of the National Dance Awards, Graham Watts, said in a statement that: “The 2021 dance year was reduced to around seven months’ of live performances and so there was less scope for the critics to make nominations. However, what we lacked in quantity was more than compensated by the outstanding quality of the work presented and the choices in all categories were closely contested with at least 20 on the long list for each award. The Company awards have been traditionally difficult to judge with the mid-scale companies often being squeezed out of consideration and so, in response to requests from the sector itself, we have introduced a new (third) company award for companies that receive NPO funding or equivalent, which will sit between the Outstanding Company and Best Independent Company awards. This has enabled companies from across the sector, from the largest to the smallest project-based freelancers, to be recognised”.
The National Dance Awards Committee is comprised of Debra Craine (Deputy Chair), Sarah Crompton, Maggie Foyer, Jonathan Gray, Lynette Halewood, Donald Hutera, Josephine Leask, David Mead, Neil Norman, Graham Watts OBE (Chair), Deborah Weiss (Secretary) and Lindsay Winship.
National Dance Awards 2022 – Nominations
DANCING TIMES AWARD FOR BEST MALE DANCER
Jeffrey Cirio (English National Ballet)
Francesco Gabriele Frola (English National Ballet)
Brandon Lawrence (Birmingham Royal Ballet)
Vadim Muntagirov (The Royal Ballet)
Edward Watson (The Royal Ballet)
BEST FEMALE DANCER
(sponsored by Tendu)
Momoko Hirata (Birmingham Royal Ballet)
Marianela Nuñez (The Royal Ballet)
Natalia Osipova (The Royal Ballet)
Cira Robinson (Ballet Black)
Erina Takahashi (English National Ballet)
STEF STEFANOU AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING COMPANY
English National Ballet
New Adventures
Northern Ballet
Rambert
The Royal Ballet
BEST MID-SCALE COMPANY
Ballet Black
Ballet Cymru
Hofesh Shechter Company
Motionhouse
Scottish Dance Theatre
BEST INDEPENDENT COMPANY
Amina Khayyam Dance Company
Far From The Norm
Impermanence
Rhiannon Faith Company
Yorke Dance Project
BEST CLASSICAL CHOREOGRAPHY
(sponsored by The Ballet Association)
Gene Kelly & Christopher Hampson for Starstruck (Scottish Ballet)
Wayne McGregor for The Dante Project (The Royal Ballet)
Mthuthuzeli November for The Waiting Game (Ballet Black)
Arielle Smith for Jolly Folly (English National Ballet)
Valentino Zucchetti for Anemoi (The Royal Ballet)
BEST MODERN CHOREOGRAPHY
(sponsored by Harlequin Floors)
Miguel Altunaga for City of a Thousand Trades (Birmingham Royal Ballet)
Matthew Bourne for The Midnight Bell (New Adventures)
Robert Cohan for Afternoon Conversations with Dancers (Yorke Dance
Project)
Dimitris Papaioannou for Transverse Orientation (Dance Umbrella/Sadler’s
Wells)
Botis Seva for BLKDG (Far From The Norm)
EMERGING ARTIST AWARD
(sponsored by The L&M Trust)
Nafisah Baba (Freelance Dance Artist)
Lanre Malaolu (Performer, Choreographer and Writer)
Bruno Micchiardi (Soloist, Scottish Ballet)
Gina Storm-Jensen (Soloist, The Royal Ballet)
Emily Suzuki (Artist, English National Ballet)
OUTSTANDING FEMALE MODERN PERFORMANCE
Cordelia Braithwaite as Clara in Nutcracker! (New Adventures)
Sutton Foster as Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes (Anything Goes/The
Barbican)
Rosie Kay in Absolute Solo 2 (Rosie Kay Dance Company)
Michela Meazza in the The Midnight Bell (New Adventures)
Yolande Yorke-Edgell in Lamentation (Yorke Dance Project)
OUTSTANDING MALE MODERN PERFORMANCE
Dan Daw in The Dan Daw Show (Dan Daw Creative Projects)
Paris Fitzpatrick in The Midnight Bell (New Adventures)
Akram Khan in Xenos (Akram Khan Company)
James Vu Anh Pham in Outwitting the Devil (Akram Khan Company)
Richard Winsor in The Midnight Bell (New Adventures)
OUTSTANDING FEMALE CLASSICAL PERFORMANCE
(sponsored by Lee McLernon)
Antoinette Brooks-Daw as Morgan in Merlin (Northern Ballet)
Alessandra Ferri in L’Heure exquise (The Royal Ballet/AF Dance/Ravenna Festival)
Marianela Nuñez in the title role as Giselle (The Royal Ballet)
Natalia Osipova in the title role as Giselle (The Royal Ballet)
Beatriz Stix-Brunel in After the Rain (The Royal Ballet)
OUTSTANDING MALE CLASSICAL PERFORMANCE
(sponsored by London Ballet Circle)
Jeffrey Cirio in the title role as Creature (English National Ballet)
Vadim Muntagirov in the title role as Apollo (The Royal Ballet)
Tyrone Singleton as Romeo in Radio and Juliet (Birmingham Royal Ballet)
Joseph Sissens in The Statement (The Royal Ballet)
Edward Watson as Dante in The Dante Project (The Royal Ballet)
OUTSTANDING CREATIVE CONTRIBUTION
Thomas Adès (Composer, for The Dante Project)
Rickard Berg (Composer, for Coppélia, KVN Dance)
Lez Brotherston (Designer, for The Midnight Bell)
Tacita Dean (Designer, for The Dante Project)
Logela Multimedia (Digital Imagery in the work of Motionhouse)
BEST DANCE FILM
Kyle Abraham/New York City Ballet for When We Fell
Rhiannon Faith/Rhiannon Faith Company for DROWNTOWN
William Forsythe/CLI Studios for The Barre Project
Gene Kelly & Christopher Hampson/Scottish Ballet for Starstruck
Jo Strømgren/Rambert for Rooms
DE VALOIS AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT
Winner to be announced at the ceremony
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