Dame Ninette de Valois was an Irish-born British dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director of classical ballet. Most notably, she danced professionally with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, later establishing the Royal Ballet, one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century and one of the leading ballet companies in the world. She also established the Royal Ballet School and the touring company which became the Birmingham Royal Ballet. She is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of ballet and as the "godmother" of English and Irish ballet.
The Royal Ballet is a British internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, England. The largest of the five major ballet companies in Great Britain, the Royal Ballet was founded in 1931 by Dame Ninette de Valois. It became the resident ballet company of the Royal Opera House in 1946, and has purpose-built facilities within these premises. It was granted a royal charter in 1956, becoming recognised as Britain's flagship ballet company.
Sylvie Guillem is a French ballet dancer. Guillem was the top-ranking female dancer with the Paris Opera Ballet from 1984 to 1989, before becoming a principal guest artist with the Royal Ballet in London. She has performed contemporary dance as an Associate Artist of London's Sadler's Wells Theatre. Her most notable performances have included those in Giselle and in Rudolf Nureyev's stagings of Swan Lake and Don Quixote. In November 2014, she announced her retirement from the stage in 2015.
Sir Anthony James Dowell is a retired British ballet dancer and a former artistic director of the Royal Ballet. He is widely recognized as one of the great danseurs nobles of the twentieth century.
Christopher Peter Wheeldon is an English international choreographer of contemporary ballet.
Sir Alistair Spalding has been the Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Sadler's Wells theatre since 2004.
Annabelle Lopez Ochoa is a Belgian-Colombian international ballet dancer and choreographer based in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Adam Cooper is an English dancer. He works as both a performer and choreographer in musical theatre, and has choreographed and/or starred in award-winning shows such as On Your Toes, Singin' in the Rain and Grand Hotel. He began his professional career as a dancer of classical ballet and contemporary ballet and is a former Principal of the Royal Ballet, a major international ballet company based in London. He became internationally recognised for creating the lead role of Swan/Stranger in Matthew Bourne's contemporary dance production of the ballet Swan Lake, a role that was briefly featured in the 2000 film Billy Elliot, in which Cooper played the adult version of the titular character.
Impressing the Czar is a four-act, award-winning, postmodern ballet choreographed by William Forsythe to music by Thom Willems, Leslie Stuck, Eva Crossman-Hecht, and Ludwig van Beethoven. It was premiered in its full-length version in 1988 in Frankfurt am Main by the Ballet Frankfurt.
Crystal Pite is a Canadian choreographer and dancer. She began her professional dance career in 1988 at Ballet BC, and in 1996 she joined Ballett Frankfurt under the tutelage of William Forsythe. After leaving Ballett Frankfurt she became the resident choreographer of Montreal company Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal from 2001 to 2004. She then returned to Vancouver where she focused on choreographing while continuing to dance in her own pieces until 2010. In 2002 she formed her own company called Kidd Pivot, which produced her original works Uncollected Work (2003), Double Story (2004), Lost Action (2006), Dark Matters (2009), The You Show (2010), The Tempest Replica (2011), Betroffenheit (2015), and Revisor (2019) to date. Throughout her career she has been commissioned by many international dance companies to create new pieces, including The Second Person (2007) for Netherlands Dans Theater and Emergence (2009) for the National Ballet of Canada, the latter of which was awarded four Dora Mavor Moore Awards.
To recognise excellence in professional dance in the United Kingdom, The Critics' Circle organised and presented the National Dance Awards 2005. The ceremony was held at the Royal Opera House, London, on 19 January 2006, with awards given for productions staged in the previous year.
Irek Dzhavdatovich Mukhamedov OBE, is a Soviet-born British ballet dancer of Tatar origin who has danced with the Bolshoi Ballet and the Royal Ballet. Born in Kazan, he trained at the Moscow Choreographic Institute under the guidance of Alexander Prokofiev between 1970 and 1978. Upon graduation, he joined the Classical Ballet Company, where he spent three years touring around the world. It was with this company that he first danced Romeo, a role that was to become one of his most acclaimed. In 1981 he won the Grand Prix and gold medal at the International Ballet Competition in Moscow and was immediately invited to join the Bolshoi Ballet as a principal dancer, where he not only became Grigorovich's favourite danseur but went to become the youngest man ever to dance the leading role in Spartacus.
David Dawson is a British dancer and choreographer who has received numerous honours and awards for his atmospheric and emotionally physical works. His style is based on the vocabulary of classical ballet and, though Dawson disagrees with the association, his style is often said to be influenced by William Forsythe.
Mark Phillip Baldwin OBE is a contemporary dance choreographer. He was born in Fiji and raised and educated in New Zealand. He was the Artistic Director of Rambert dance company from 2002–2018.
Will Tuckett is an English director and choreographer, who has created works for many international companies including the Royal Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, and English National Ballet.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui is a Belgian dancer and choreographer and director. He has made over 50 choreographic pieces and received two Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production, three Ballet Tanz awards for best choreographer, the KAIROS Prize (2009) and the Europe Prize Theatrical Realities (2018).
Justin Peck is an American choreographer, director, and dancer associated with New York City Ballet, of which he was appointed Resident Choreographer in July 2014, being the second person in the history of the institution to hold this title. A two-time Tony Award for Best Choreography recipient, he won in 2018 for the revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel and in 2024 for the Sufjan Stevens original dance musical, Illinoise. On film, Peck choreographed the dance sequences for Steven Spielberg musical adaptation West Side Story (2021) and Bradley Cooper's biographical drama Maestro (2023).
Francesco Ventriglia is an Italian ballet dancer, choreographer and artistic director. In 2010 he was appointed as Europe's youngest artistic director by the Florence Opera House at the age of 32, where he held the role as artistic director and principal choreographer for Maggio Danza until 2013. In 2014, he was named the artistic director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet until June 2017, and from January 2018, as adjunct artistic director of the National Ballet of Uruguay, Ballet Nacional Sodre alongside Igor Yebra. Ventriglia is also a choreographer of classical and contemporary ballet, having works performed internationally by companies such as the La Scala Ballet, Arena di Verona, Bolshoi Theatre, the Mariinsky Ballet, Grande Theatre du Geneve, Royal New Zealand Ballet, Ballet Nacional Sodre and at the Venice Biannale.
To recognise excellence in professional dance in the United Kingdom, The Critics' Circle organised and presented the National Dance Awards 2006. The ceremony was held at the Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, on 25 January 2007, with awards given for productions staged in the previous year.
Daniel Proietto is a dancer, choreographer, director, and writer. His works encompass dance, theater, and film and have been featured and supported by various international dance companies.
