The five finalists for The Place Prize for Dance 2008, sponsored by Bloomberg, are announced today. With diverse experience and backgrounds, this year’s finalists hope to follow in the successful footsteps of former finalists including Hofesh Shechter, Rafael Bonachela and Nina Rajarani, and will compete for a £25,000 prize.

The five finalists are:

Aletta Collins for Lap Dancer
Simon Ellis for Gertrud
Dan Van Huynh for Collision
Adam Linder for Foie Gras
Anna Williams for Clearing

The finalists have beaten off another fifteen choreographers to reach the last stages of the competition, having initially been selected from more than 170 applicants. Chaired by John Ashford, creator of The Prize and Theatre Director of The Place, the judging panel includes Kenneth Kvarnström, choreographer; John Pawson, architect and designer; Lemn Sissay, poet; Kathleen Soriano, curator and gallery director and Jenny Waldman, events producer and consultant.

The Place Prize is the dance world's cross between the Turner Prize and the X Factor, with the former's celebration of artistic excellence and the latter's knack for uncovering new talent with the help of a live audience. It is Europe's largest choreography competition and is produced by The Place, the UK's premier centre for contemporary dance. The biennial competition is now in its third edition, and by the end of this year's event The Place Prize will have invested £750,000 in developing choreographic talent, including a total commissioning, performing and prize fund of £165,000 for this year's participants.

Each of the 20 choreographers received a commission award of £5,000, and was given studio time and technical support to create their new works over the summer. The works premiered at The Place in London during early September 2008, and in a further series of performances the five finalists will now compete for £10,000 of audience-voted prizes. The judges will award the grand prize of £25,000 to The Place Prize Winner 2008 on Saturday 27 September. 

John Ashford, Theatre Director of The Place and creator of the biennial prize, said this evening:

'This year's finalists demonstrate the breadth of talent that The Place Prize continues to foster. The judges found it extremely challenging to compare pieces of such high calibre and such a wealth of choreographic ideas.'

Profiles of five choreographers and their pieces

Aletta Collins
Aletta Collins trained at London Contemporary Dance School and performed with the London Contemporary Dance Theatre.  She has worked extensively as a freelance choreographer and director for dance companies, theatre, opera and film.  Aletta was choreographer in Residence at The Place and was artistic director of her own company, Aletta Collins Dance.

Aletta has created Lap Dancer, a solo for dancer Rachel Krische, which is a dialogue between Rachel and her laptop.  The piece features music by Peter Morris and Mieko Shimizu at Street Furniture.

Simon Ellis
Simon, 40,  is a New Zealand-born independent artist and choreographer, whose work has included site-specific investigations, screen dance, installation, webart and traditional theatre performances. Now based in London, He studied at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne and has a practice-led PhD in choreography from Melbourne University.  His projects focus on dance and performance that provokes and contextualizes human psychology with particular interest in the effects of human memory.  Simon is also currently the practice-led research fellow at the University of Northampton.

Gertrud is an imagined conversation between choreographer Gertrud Bodenwieser (who died in 1959) and Simon Ellis, a solo performer. Simon challenges today's culture of forgetting by bringing a personality from the past, voiced by Shona Dunlop-MacTavish who danced with Bodenwieser in the 1930s and 40s, to vivid life.

Adam Linder
Adam, 25,  has danced with The Royal Ballet, Netherlands Dance Theatre, the Michael Clark Company and Bonachela Dance Company. In 2005 he created Over My Dead Body for The Lucent Theatre, Holland. In 2006, he set up Collectnudes.com, an online exhibition and archive of short film in collaboration with photographer Will Davidson. Their films have been broadcast on UK, Australian and Spanish Television. In 2008 he created The Perfect Score for The Place and presented an installation entitled I Put My Trust In You at The Palais De Tokyo, Paris.

Foie Gras is about what fuels the current climate of material, information and entertainment overload.  Pole-dancing, Happy Meals and human bridles all feature in a work which observes a demise of sensuality within inter-personal interaction as a result of the immediacy of over consumption.

Dam Van Huynh
Born in southern Vietnam, Dam, 28, was raised in California.  He began his dance training at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and went on to graduate from the Boston Conservatory of Music and Dance.  He has worked with Nevada Ballet, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, CeDeCe of Portugal, Richard Alston Dance Company and Phoenix Dance Theatre.

Collision consists of movement based choreography that examines the complexity of the torso by dividing and clearly defining the independent movement capability.  The work is inspired by observations of people and their daily activity and how each individual approaches an event or a problem with their own unique physical interpretation.

Anna Williams
A dancer, choreographer and teacher, Anna Williams, 39, graduated from London Contemporary Dance School and went on to perform with Ricochet Dance Company for nine years.  She has worked with Random Dance, Russell Maliphant, Aletta Collins and New Art Club and continues to perform a solo show by Nik Haffner titled Unaccompanied and with Two Dancers, which she co-directs.  Anna’s choreography includes collaborations with The Gate Theatre London, EDge and The Barbican.

In Clearing two women meet in a place to dance a duet. They pull, stab, grasp, push, flail and catch - and one of them keeps disappearing.

Ends

Notes to Editors

Please see contact details below:

• The Place is the UK's premier centre for contemporary dance: an unrivalled centre for dance training, creation and performance.  The Place is located at 17 Duke's Road, London WC1H 9PY

• The Place Prize is internationally recognized as a major new landmark event on the UK dance calendar.  With £130,000 invested in the creation and performance of new works and £35,000 more in prize money, it is the largest and most significant choreography competition in Europe.

• The Place Prize is funded through ticket revenue, support from Arts Council England and sponsorship by Bloomberg.

Tickets for the finals performances at The Place's Robin Howard Dance Theatre (17-27 September, not Sun 21) are on sale now, box office: 020 7121 1100 / www.theplace.org.uk

Key dates:

Wednesday 17 September
Press night
Wednesday 17 - Saturday 27 September (not Sunday 21 September)
Finals Performances
Saturday 27 September at 10.30pm
Announcement of The Place Prize Winner 2008

Media Opportunities

• Finalists and judges may be available for interview via Colman Getty PR
• John Ashford, Theatre Director and founder of The Place Prize, and Kenneth Tharp, Chief Executive of The Place are available for interview via Colman Getty PR
• Lanson is the champagne sponsor for The Place Prize 2008

For further information on The Place Prize please contact:
Sarah Watson and Truda Spruyt
at Colman Getty
Tel: 020 7631 2666 Email: and
Out of hours contact: Truda Spruyt 07740 725206

Published: 13 September 2008