Ballet Flanders has been nominated as ‘Company of the year’
Dance Europe Magazine has nominated the whole company of Ballet Flanders as ‘Company of the year’. Each year, critics of the reputable magazine are listing the best performances of the previous season and are sending encouragements to the international ballet world. Moreover, principals like Aki Saito, Wim Vanlessen, Ricardo Amarante and soloist David Jonathan did not remain unnoticed in the specialized international press.
Saito and Vanlessen were nominated in the categories ‘Outstanding Performance by a Female and Male Dancer’, in particular for their leading parts as Tatjana eand Onegin in the ballet Onegin by choreographer John Cranko. Last season, Aki and Wim celebrated their twenty-year dance partnership with a gala performance of this ballet. Besides, they received an honourable mention for their performance in Love Fear Loss by choreographer Ricardo Amarante, who is a soloist at Ballet Flanders.
Soloist David Jonathan was nominated in the category 'Outstanding Performance by a Best Male Dancer' for his part as Espada in Don Quichot by choreographer Alexey Fadeechev.
Besides, various names of partners of Ballet Flanders have been honoured. Andrew McNicol (Choreolab: Eunoia) was elected 'Talent to Watch' and the name of the young Belgian choreographer Jeroen Verbruggen catches the attention in the list of honour. Later this season he will be creating new work with Ballet Flanders in the form of Ravel, a new performance devoted to the music of Maurice Ravel.
2014-2015 has been an unusual season for Ballet Flanders, after the departure of artistic director Assis Carreiro and before the arrival of the current artistic team with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Tamas Moricz. Nonetheless, the company was praised for the quality of its work in these exceptional circumstances : “A company that managed to maintain the highest standards of artistic quality in a difficult transitional season without artistic direction.”