Eclectic Jury Announced for Prix de Lausanne 2021 Video Edition
Three Australians Announced as Young Creation Award Finalists
This year will see an amended version take place for the 49th annual Prix de Lausanne International Ballet Competition held out of Switzerland. Usually host to talented baller dancers from around the world, this year will see the competition take place virtually via a Video Edition due to the global Covid19 pandemic. This change was announced in November last year.
This week the members of the nine member jury panel of the 49th Prix de Lausanne were announced. The jury will be presided by Richard Wherlock, Director and Head Choreographer of the Basel Ballet. In order to supervise this upcoming Video Edition he and the 8 other Jury members will gather in Lausanne to watch and mark the 79 candidates via recorded videos.
The nine jury members of the Prix de Lausanne 2021 are: Richard Wherlock (President), Clairemarie Osta (Vice-President), Armando Braswell, Kinsun Chan, Myrna Kamara, Nicolas Le Riche, Ihsan Rustem, Sarawanee Tanatanit and Samuel Wuersten. Bio links here
“I feel very honoured to have Mr. Richard Wherlock, the Director of the Basel Ballet and a strong advocate for young dancers, as the 2021 Prix de Lausanne Jury President,” said Kathryn Bradney, Artistic and Executive Director, Prix de Lausanne.
The audience will be able to follow the full programme live on Arte Concert and on prixdelausanne.org. With original content and a live commentary presented by Jason Beechey and Cinthia Labaronne in Lausanne, it will be streamed on Arte Concert and on the Prix de Lausanne website from Monday, 1st February to Saturday, 6th February.
This year saw the committee members of the Prix de Lausanne select 82 dancers to participate in the world renowned annual ballet scholarship, of which 4 have since dropped out of the running. Out of the 41 Australian applicants, there are three (3) dancers selected for the competition. They are: Charlotte Cohen from Melbourne Conservatoire of Ballet, Morganne Speirs from Tanya Pearson Academy in Sydney, Levi Miller from Tanya Pearson Academy. There was just one New Zealand applicant and she was selected: Keira Hall from New Zealand Mount Eden Ballet Academy.
The first edition of the Young Creation Award finalists will also be presenting their variations via video during the competition week. After being watched and marked by the Jury, two of them will be awarded. The Young Creation Award is a new competition in search of young choreographic talent and sponsored by the renowned choreographer Heinz Spoerli,
After the great success of the three editions of its Choreographic Project, the Prix de Lausanne announced last February the setting up of a brand new programme for the Partner School and Companies students, aiming to encourage and highlight young choreographic talent – hence the establishment of the inaugural Young Creation Award.
In total, 54 young choreographers (32 girls and 22 boys) from 18 different Partner Schools submitted a variation.
The selected finalists are: Joshua Ostermann (Australia), Pablo Polo (Spain), Maya Smallwood (USA), Louis Van Etten (Australia) and Samuel Winkler (Australia).
“We would like to congratulate all choreographers and their beautiful dancers for their wonderful work, creativity and energy. It was incredibly heartwarming to get so much enthusiasm despite the technical difficulties (rehearsals, filming, coaching, etc.) they must have faced within this pandemic context. It is very encouraging for the years to come and we hope the future editions of the Young Creation Award will keep gathering such inspiration and talent.”
Their original variations will be watched and judged by the Jury during the competition week in February, with the two winning choreographies will become part of the Prix de Lausanne 2022 contemporary repertoire.
Despite the pandemic context, the Young Creation Award has met great enthusiasm (55 submitted choreographies in total), which highlights the importance of this new programme and confirms the Prix de Lausanne’s status as a forerunner and mentor in the dance world.
www.prixdelausanne.org
