Introducing the Nominees for the NDA 2011
Award for Best Modern Choreography
Debra Craine and Graham Watts
Published: 22/01/2012
Award for Best Modern Choreography
Javier De Frutos
(for The Most Incredible Thing)
Born in Venezuela, Javier trained there, at the London School of Contemporary Dance and at the Cunningham studio in New York. He danced with several companies before focusing on choreography, initially making solos for himself. He has made work for Rambert, Phoenix Dance Theatre and the Royal New Zealand Ballet, among others, and has choreographed musicals. He won the 2004 Critics’ Circle Award for Best Choreography (Modern). He is nominated this year for The Most Incredible Thing, his collaboration with the Pet Shop Boys based on a story by Hans Christian Andersen.
Akram Khan (for Vertical Road)
Born in London into a family of Bangladeshi origin, Akram began dancing at seven and trained with the kathak dancer and teacher Sri Pratap Pawar. After studying contemporary dance and working on the X-Group project with Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker in Brussels, he presented his first solo works in the late 1990s. As a choreographer he has bridged two worlds - kathak and contemporary dance - and worked with other artists, including Juliette Binoche, Sylvie Guillem, Antony Gormley and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. In 2000 he won the Critics’ Circle Most Promising Newcomer Award; in 2003 he won the award for Best Choreography
(Modern); and in 2005 won the award for Outstanding Male Artist (Modern). He is nominated this year for his production Vertical
Road.
Hofesh Shechter (for Political Mother, the Choreographer’s Cut)
The Israeli composer and choreographer graduated from the Jerusalem Academy for Dance and Music before moving to Tel Aviv to join the Batsheva Dance Company. He arrived in the UK in 2002. He first came to attention with Cult, which was one of the finalists for The Place Prize. Since then he has made a string of highly successful productions, including In Your Rooms, which won
the Critics’ Circle Award for Best Choreography (Modern) in 2008. He is nominated this year for the Choreographer’s Cut of Political Mother.
Luca Silvestrini (for LOL)
The Italian-born choreographer founded the London-based Protein Dance in 1997 (with Bettina Strickler from Switzerland). Their brief was to take everyday issues and subject them “to a deep, witty analysis through….very idiosyncratic and distinctive dance theatre”. Luca is nominated for LOL, which looks at how the virtual world is impacting on real-life relationships. It was widely described as his strongest work to date.