The 10th International Competition for the Erik Bruhn Prize takes place on November 28, 2012.

The list of competitors and choreographers has been released. I think Liam Scarlett stands out amongst the choreographic competitors, though the Royal Danish Ballet has gone outside the company to choose a dancer from the Danish Dance Theater, Alessandro Pereira. Among the women, I would guess RDB's Ida Praetorius has an edge, but none of the men jumps out at me.

I find the timing of the competition interesting given that most companies are probably deep into Nutcracker rehearsals, and need every moving body in the company on deck. It would also be nice, as I've said before, to have the competition rotate between North America and Europe. It seems to be that the European competitors are at a disadvantage having to fly across the Atlantic, and the NBoC competitors always have 'home crowd'. I don't know the details of Bruhn's bequest, but I can't imagine that it would be impossible to find a date at one of the Copenhagen, Hamburg or London theatres, and there certainly have been other changes (choreography award, audience awards, inclusion of the Stuttgart and Hamburg Ballets).




Competitors

Choreographic Prize Competitors

Judges

The National Ballet of Canada
Emma Hawes and Brendan Saye

American Ballet Theatre
Devon Teuscher and Calvin Royal III

The Hamburg Ballet
Xue Lin and Aleix Martinez

The Royal Ballet
Francesca Hayward and James Hay

The Royal Danish Ballet
Ida Praetorius and Andreas Kaas



Gemma Bond
American Ballet Theatre

Sasha Riva
The Hamburg Ballet

Guillaume Côté
The National Ballet of Canada

Liam Scarlett
The Royal Ballet

Alessandaro Pereira
The Royal Danish Ballet

The NBoC is live tweeting tonight...

Interesting to note that 3 of the 5 competing couples chose Bournonville pdds for the classical piece. Could be seen as risky to try to out-Bournonville the Danes, especially when the RDB contestants are both products of the RDB School and thus have 'Bournonville in their blood'.

Congratulations to the Danes for sweeping the Erik Bruhn Prizes!!!!!! Ida Praetorius and Andreas Kaas received the prizes for the best male and female dancer and Alessandro Pereira received the choreographic award!