The prizes “Benois de la Danse – 2005” are delivered yesterday at the Bolshoi to:

Male dancer - MATHIEU GANIO

Female dancer - MARIE-AGNÈS GILLOT and SVETLANA ZAKHAROVA

Choreographer – ALEXEI RATMANSKY

Composer – MAURO LANZA

Scenographer – JIRI KILIAN

The life in art – TRISHA BROWN and HANS van MANNEN

Thank you for beginning this topic, Mikhail! I'll add a few juicy tidbits of information.

Readers may be interested to note that Ratmansky's award as Best Choreographer was for his version of 'Anna Karenina' at the Royal Danish Ballet, rather than for his recent work in the Bolshoi Theater, where he is Artistic Director. Ratmansky's 2-hr ballet premiered in Copenhagen in spring 2004, if memory serves. It employs the Rodion Schedrin score that was created for the 1970s Bolshoi version by Moscow choreographers N. Kasatkina & V. Vasiliov, starring Plisetskaya (Mrs. Schedrin).

Ganio & Gillot are both Paris Opera Ballet etoiles, which not every reader may know.

It's also interesting to list the Jury for this competition:

Vyacheslav Gordeev - former Bolshoi star & assoc. dir. to V. Vasiliev during his tenure as Bolshoi A.D.
Eva Evdokimova - American-born veteran ballerina with a number of European troupes
Stephen Jeffreys - director of Hong Kong Ballet
Vladimir Malakhov - star & director of Berlin Ballet
Madeleine Onne - director of Royal Swedish Ballet
Elisabeth Platel - head of the Paris Opera Ballet Academy & ex-etoile
Marcia Haydee - director of National Ballet of Chile & ex-star/director of Stuttgart Ballet

Tonight (April 27) there will be 'part two' of the Benois de la Danse celebrations, in the form of a Gala Concert with many luminaries of the ballet world, including Diana Vishneva, Lucia Lacarra, Alina Cojocaru, Vladimir Malakhov, Nikolai Tsiskaridze, and special appearances by 'veteran' French stars Michel Denard and Laurent Hillaire.