Two Australian dancers have been nominated for the UK’s 12th National Dance Awards, announced in London on November 4.
Steven McRae, a principal with the Royal Ballet, has been nominated for Best Male Dancer. For company he has Jonathan Goddard (from Rambert Dance Company) and fellow Royal Ballet dancers Sergei Polunin and Edward Watson.
Sydney-born McRae trained in ballet with Hilary Kaplan and tap with Glenn Wood before going to the Royal Ballet School.
Elisha Willis has been nominated for Outstanding Female Performance: Classical. Born in Melbourne, Australia, Willis trained at the Christa Cameron School of Ballet and later the Australian Ballet School. She joined the Australian Ballet in 1999 where she was promoted to soloist in 2001.
She joined Birmingham Royal Ballet in 2003 and was promoted to principal in 2004.
She has been nominated alongside Melissa Hamilton (Royal Ballet), Sophie Martin (Scottish Ballet) and Akane Takada (Royal Ballet).
The winners will be announced at a ceremony to be held in the Robin Howard Theatre at The Place in London on Monday, 23 January 2012. Look out for the announcement on this site!