Peter Darrell Choreographic Award
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Commissions have recently been announced for the 2007 Peter Darrell Choreographic Award. |
The Award began in 1998, and this is the fourth year that it has been presented. It serves as a platform for emerging choreographers and was introduced to commemorate the life and works of the founder of Scottish Ballet, Peter Darrell.
The award was set up by the Peter Darrell Trust after a grant was received from the Scottish Arts Council's New Direction Lottery Fund towards the cost of creating and establishing the award, as well as publishing a book on Peter Darrell's work. It allows developing choreographers to work with Scotland's leading dance companies, Scottish Ballet and Scottish Dance Theatre, commissioning them to create and produce a new work.
The Peter Darrell Trust announced the recipients of the 2007 Award in September 2006. Vanessa Haska was awarded the Scottish Dance Theatre commission while the Scottish Ballet commission was awarded to Diana Loosmore. A mentor will provide additional support to each choreographer, along with each company's director - Scottish Ballet's Ashley Page and Scottish Dance Theatre's Janet Smith. Both recipients will have a unique opportunity to develop their choreographic and creative skills within the context of a professional dance company.
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Vanessa Haska was born in 1979 in Greece and studied at the Athens State School of Dance. She later went on to do postgraduate studies specialising in choreography, during which time she collaborated with the dance film makers Lucy Baldwin and Sonia Rodriguez. |
She has choreographed for the Devon Youth Dance Company, the "Shift" Youth Dance Company of London Contemporary Dance School, the London Studio Centre and the Scottish Contemporary Dance School, The Space.
Vanessa won the Movingeast Choreographic Residency 2005 and currently runs her own dance company in London. She is also a teacher of creative and contemporary dance at the Royal Academy of Dance.
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Diana Loosmore trained at the Queensland University of Technology and has been a soloist with Scottish Ballet since Spring 2003. Since joining the company, she has performed in Ashley Page's Acrid Avid Jam, The Nutcracker, 32 Cryptograms, Nightswimming into Day, Refurbished Behaviour, The Pump Room, Cinderella and many more productions. |
Before joining Scottish Ballet, Diana performed for Jeremy James and Company, Red Rain Dance Theatre, Paul Douglas' Small Bones Dance Company, Rafael Bonachela and Richard Alston Dance Company. Diana has also appeared alongside Snag Project choreographers Joanne Fong and Sarah Warsop at the Royal Opera House and Queen Elizabeth Hall and danced with Siobahn Davies Dance Company on the 2003 Bank Project. In 2005 she received a Herald Angel Award for excellence in her performance of Page works during that year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
The premiere of the works by both winners of this year's Award took place in Dundee in February. Scottish Ballet performed Chasing Ghosts, a septet by Diana Loosmore, and Scottish Dance Theatre performed Sorry for the Missiles by Vanessa Haska.
Performances of both works will also take place at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow on Friday 13 April as part of Scottish Ballet's Spring Season.
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