One Dance UK Awards
The One Dance UK Awards is an annual celebration for people from across the dance sector to unite, celebrate, acknowledge and reward the people who have made an impact on the vibrant UK dance landscape! Championing the excellent work of dance artists, teachers, practitioners, educators, schools, choreographers, companies, venues, scientists, and writers, this is a glittering evening of celebrations, all for those who contribute to the dance sector throughout the UK.
Community Champion Award
This award is for any person or organisation who is using dance as a tool to create, strengthen and /or build communities with non-professional groups in any setting and with any age group.
Dance Changemaker Award
This award recognises bold, brave and impactful work that has driven progress, improving access to dance for all, and championing diversity and inclusion, and could be for a person, team, organisation, campaign or movement.
Health & Wellbeing in Dance Award
This award is for any person, team, or organisation whose work has had a transformational impact on the health and wellbeing of people who dance, encompassing dancers’ health and dance for health.
Research in Dance Award
This award celebrates research in dance that is pushing the artform forward with academic and scientific enquiry. It will be impacting how dance is created, seen, taught, and understood, and will be helping influence the future of the dance ecology.
Artistic Innovation in Dance Award
This award recognises those who are innovating across artistic elements of dance, including stage design, choreography, costume and lighting, to unlock new ways of storytelling, exploring themes, and challenging how we think.
The Dance Spotlight Award
This award is a chance to shine a light on those whose work is vital to the production and support of dance. Bringing those back of the house to centre stage, this could be a Producer, Programmer, Venue, Admin teams, School & community leaders to name just a few.
The Green Dance Award
This award celebrates any form of work that uses dance as a tool to spotlight and respond to environmental & climate issues. Work can be in any genre, scale, location or remit within dance.
Young People’s Dance Champion Award
This award spotlights individual dance educators (working with children or young people from pre-school through to higher education) who are championing dance to be experienced by all young people, regardless of style, genre or setting.
This Award is supported by the Royal Academy of Dance.
The People’s Choice Award
The People’s Choice Award recognises an individual or organisation that has made a significant contribution to the dance industry throughout the last year. This award is decided by the public.
This Award is supported by Performers College.
The Bob Lockyer Award for Digital Innovation in Dance
This award showcases individuals or organisations that use technology and digital to innovate how we see, experience and understand dance.
The Jane Attenborough Award
The prestigious Jane Attenborough Award honours an individual working who, like Jane, has made an outstanding contribution to dance throughout their career.
Honouring Jane Attenborough and Bob Lockyer OBE
The prestigious Jane Attenborough Award and the newly named Bob Lockyer Award for Digital Innovation in Dance awards honour the lives and work of founding members of Dance UK.
The Jane Attenborough Award
The Award is named in memory of the founding Director of Dance UK, Jane Attenborough (1955 – 2004).
A dynamic and passionate advocate for the arts and in particular, dance, throughout a 25-year career, Jane made a huge impact on the arts sector working for the Royal Academy of Dance, Arts Council of Great Britain, Rambert Dance Company, and Dance UK (one of the four organisations that merged to form One Dance UK).
Throughout her career, and particularly as a founding executive director of Dance UK, Jane used her vast experience in arts management, lobbying, fundraising and administration to contribute to promoting the dance sector and improving conditions for dancers. Her forward-thinking work resulted in ground-breaking and long-lasting legacies for the dance community, including the creation and development of our Healthier Dancer Programme.
Every year One Dance UK recognises the incredible lasting impact Jane had on the dance sector by dedicating an Award in her name. This Award is presented to individuals who, like Jane, have gone above and beyond the call of duty to move dance forward and enable the art form to thrive.
Bob Lockyer OBE
This Award is named in memory of one of the founding members of Dance UK, Bob Lockyer OBE (1942 – 2022).
An innovator, a collaborator, a director, a patron, a founding member of One Dance UK and so much more, Bob Lockyer OBE truly was an inspiration, a mentor and a friend to all of us in the sector.
The Bob Lockyer Digital Innovation in Dance Award aims to pay homage to Bob and his incredible legacy. This award – one that showcases work using technology and digital to innovate how we see, experience, understand and use dance – will also pay tribute to Bob’s incredibly vibrant mind and all the innovation he bought to the sector.
Every year One Dance UK recognises the incredible impact Bob had on the dance sector by dedicating an Award in his name. This Award is presented to individuals who thrive on technological innovation, digital creativity and more.
One Dance UK Awards Recipients 2023
The Community Champion Award: Step Change Studios
Green Dance Award: Akademi, Pravaas
Young People’s Dance Champion Award: Ashwini Kalsekar
Science & Research in Dance Award: Maria Kolitsida
The Health & Wellbeing in Dance Award: Sara Macqueen (Linden Dance)
Bob Lockyer Award for Digital Innovation in Dance: Birmingham Royal Ballet
The People’s Choice Award: Dr Swati Raut
The Dance Changemaker Award: Dancers Career Development
The Artistic Innovation in Dance Award: Luca Silvestrini
The Dance Spotlight Award: Melanie Precious
The Jane Attenborough Award: Claire Nicholson and Eddie Copp
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