English National Ballet is thrilled to announce that the winner of the 2024 Emerging Dancer Award is Breanna Foad
Having performed the Venetian Carnival duet from Satanella and Penrose, a new contemporary work by Ching-Ying Chien, with her partner Thiago Pereira, Breanna Foad was announced as the winner during the Emerging Dancer event, hosted by English National Ballet’s Artistic Director, Aaron S. Watkin, at Sadler’s Wells on 24 May 2024.
Of winning the 2024 Emerging Dancer Award, Breanna Foad said: ’I am incredibly shocked and grateful for being the winner of Emerging Dancer. I’ve learned so much during this process. It’s such an honour to win this prize and I feel so motivated to keep growing as an artist.’
The evening also saw Anna-Babette Winkler, also an Emerging Dancer finalist, named as the recipient of the Corps de Ballet Award, acknowledging her exceptional work over the last year, while Soloist Precious Adams was awarded the People’s Choice Award, as voted for by members of the public throughout the season.
The event allows English National Ballet to showcase the excellence of its artists. This year’s esteemed judging panel included Amanda Britton MA, Chief Executive, Principal and Artistic Director of Rambert School; Monica Zamora, Former Principal Dancer of Birmingham Royal Ballet; Edward Watson MBE, Former Principal Dancer of The Royal Ballet; and Isabela Coracy, Senior Artist of Ballet Black.
Aaron S. Watkin, Artistic Director of English National Ballet said: ’Emerging Dancer is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate English National Ballet’s incredible young talent and a bright future of ballet. The standard we saw on stage tonight has been exceptional and a joy to watch – I know it will have been very difficult for our panel to pick a winner. Huge congratulations to Breanna Foad, I can’t wait to see what’s next for this brilliant dancer.’
The other finalists this year were Anna Ciriano, Shunhei Fuchiyama, Jose María Lorca Menchón, Thiago Pereira and Anna-Babette Winkler.
English National Ballet Philharmonic performed live throughout the evening, finished with the Delibes Suite pas de deux performed by the 2022 Emerging Dancer winner Eric Snyder and People’s Choice Precious Adams.
A full recording of the event will be available on English National Ballet’s YouTube channel from Thursday 30 May, for a limited time of 30 days.
Congratulations to all winners! Notably Precious Adams wins the People’s Choice Award for the second time. Jury’s out on Watkins as he has not had much time to make his mark but it seems Precious Adams is more appreciated by the public than the ENB management, she is still only a soloist and only rarely gets the leading roles. Precious Adams must be very happy at ENB (and of course why shouldn’t she be?) but surely another company could give her the opportunities her talents appear to deserve.