Jonathan Goddard, a dancer with Richard Alston Dance Company, has won the coveted Dancing Times Award for Best Male Dancer at the Critics' Circle National Dance Awards. 

The National Dance Awards are the UK's leading awards for dance and ballet. Previous winners in the blue ribband category of Best Male Dancer include Carlos Acosta and Jonathan Cope; Goddard's win is the first time that the award has gone to an non-ballet artist.

The National Dance Awards were presented at a ceremony at the Royal Opera House on 22 January. Other winners included Place alumnus Henri Oguike, whose company pipped Richard Alston Dance Company to the prize for Best Modern Repertoire, and former Place resident choreographer Wayne McGregor, who won best choreography for his work with the Royal Ballet.

Celeste Dandeker, a onetime dancer with London Contemporary Dance Theatre and the founder of CandoCo Dance Company was doubly honoured with the Dance UK Industry Award and the De Valois Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance.

(Picture shows Jonathan Goddard (grey suit, centre left) with his fellow National Dance Award winners)