Chengwu Guo has been crowned the 2011 winner of the Telstra Ballet Dancer Award (TBDA).
In an impressive coup he has also been voted the Telstra People’s Choice, scooping the 2011 TBDA pool. Chengwu is the first male dancer to win both the panel-voted main award and the public-decided Telstra People’s Choice.
Between the two honours, 22-year-old Chengwu has taken home a cash prize total of $25,000.
The TBDA is in-house award for members of the Australian Ballet. It is sponsored by the company’s principal sponsor, Telstra, which has been supporting the company now for 27 years, in one of the longest arts sponsorships in Australian corporate history.
The artistic director of the Australian Ballet, David McAllister, congratulated Chengwu on his remarkable accomplishment: “Bravo to Chengwu! He is a powerhouse with astounding technical ability who regularly leaves our audiences gasping in astonishment at his death-defying leaps and speed-of-light pirouettes.”
Since leaving the Jiangxi province of southern China at age eleven to begin ballet training at Beijing Dance Academy, Chengwu has found success at every turn.
He won the prestigious Prix de Lausanne in 2006; his prize was a dance-training scholarship, which he chose to undertake at the Australian Ballet School.
In 2009 Chengwu won the Chinese version of So You Think You Can Dance in front of a TV audience of 80 million. That same year he appeared as the teenage Li Cunxin in the smash-hit film Mao’s Last Dancer.
This year’s TBDA judging panel was comprised of McAllister; the AB’s executive director Valerie Wilder and associate artistic director Danilo Radojevic; Richard Howarth (general manager, sponsorship and awards, Telstra); Kirsten Galliott (editor, the(sydney)magazine) and Josh Horner (Dancing with The Stars judge and former dancer with the Australian Ballet).
Chengwu won his award over tough competition: the other TBDA nominees for 2011 were Brett Chynoweth, Rudy Hawkes, Robyn Hendricks, Luke Marchant and Karen Nanasca -– all of whom gave beautiful performances throughout the year.