One Dance UK Awards
Nominations for next year are open now!
Know someone amazing in dance?
Nominate them for a One Dance UK Award!
The One Dance UK Awards are all about celebrating the brilliant people making a difference in dance — whether they’re a dance teacher who’s inspired you, a dance artist doing amazing things for their community, someone behind the scenes who’s spreading joy through dance or a leader using dance to make real change. Now’s your chance to give them the spotlight they deserve by nominating them for any of the 12 award categories.
Nominate them now - it could make their year.

Community Champion Award
This award is for any person or organisation who is using dance as a tool to create, strengthen and /or build communities with non-professional groups in any setting and with any age group.

Dance Changemaker Award
This award recognises bold, brave and impactful work that has driven progress, improving access to dance for all, and championing diversity and inclusion, and could be for a person, team, organisation, campaign or movement.

Advancing Dancer Healthcare Award
This award honours those that support dance professionals and aspiring dancers to be healthy, well, and performing at their best.

Research in Dance Award
This award celebrates research in dance that is pushing the artform forward with academic and scientific enquiry. It will be impacting how dance is created, seen, taught, and understood, and will be helping influence the future of the dance ecology.

Artistic Innovation in Dance Award
This award recognises those who are innovating across artistic elements of dance, including stage design, choreography, costume and lighting, to unlock new ways of storytelling, exploring themes, and challenging how we think.

The Dance Sector Spotlight Award
For producers, admin teams, marketers, programmers, school & community leaders, fundraisers, venues…. the list goes on! This award is a chance to shine a light on those whose work is vital to the production and support of dance.

The Green Dance Award
This award celebrates an individual, team, organisation, venue or project in the dance sector, that is working to spotlight and respond to the environment and climate issues.

Young People’s Dance Champion Award
This award spotlights individual dance educators championing dance to be experienced by all young people, regardless of style, genre or setting.

The Bob Lockyer Award for Digital or Content Creation
This award showcases individuals, teams, projects or organisations who create engaging, high-quality content to promote, share or educate about dance.

The People’s Choice Award
The People’s Choice Award recognises an individual or organisation that has made a significant contribution to the dance industry throughout the last year. This award is decided by the public.

Dance for Health Award
This award recognises the transformative work of those using dance activity to make a significant impact on participants’ health and wellbeing.

The Jane Attenborough Award
The prestigious Jane Attenborough Award honours an individual working who, like Jane, has made an outstanding contribution to dance throughout their career.
We had a wonderful time celebrating the dance sector at the awards ceremony on Friday 24 January 2025 at the Patrick Studio, Birmingham Hippodrome. Congratulations to everyone who was nominated and shortlisted! This year's One Dance UK Awards were generously sponsored by Harlequin Floors and Equity. You can see the full list of this year's award recipients below.
One Dance UK Awards 2025 image gallery
Images courtesy of Point of View Photography.




















This year's award recipients:
Health and Wellbeing in Dance Award: Emily Jenkins, Move Dance Feel
Research in Dance Award: Gemma Harman, ResDance
Young People’s Dance Champion Award: Sarah Shorten
Community Champion Award: Fallen Angels Dance Theatre
The Dance Spotlight Award: Carolyn Lappin
The Dance Changemaker Award: Fallen Angels Dance Theatre & Paul Bayes Kitcher
The Green Dance Award: Magpie Dance
Artistic Innovation in Dance Award: Stopgap Dance Company
People’s Choice Award: Dance with Sonia Brown
The Bob Lockyer Award for Digital Innovation: Avatâra Ayuso
The Jane Attenborough Award: Hakeem Onibudo
"We are delighted to shine a light on the work, dedication and talent of these incredible people who are truly making a difference to the dance sector every day."

Honouring Jane Attenborough and Bob Lockyer OBE
The prestigious Jane Attenborough Award and the newly named Bob Lockyer Award for Digital Innovation in Dance awards honour the lives and work of founding members of Dance UK.
The Jane Attenborough Award
The Award is named in memory of the founding Director of Dance UK, Jane Attenborough (1955 – 2004).
A dynamic and passionate advocate for the arts and in particular, dance, throughout a 25-year career, Jane made a huge impact on the arts sector working for the Royal Academy of Dance, Arts Council of Great Britain, Rambert Dance Company, and Dance UK (one of the four organisations that merged to form One Dance UK).
Throughout her career, and particularly as a founding executive director of Dance UK, Jane used her vast experience in arts management, lobbying, fundraising and administration to contribute to promoting the dance sector and improving conditions for dancers. Her forward-thinking work resulted in ground-breaking and long-lasting legacies for the dance community, including the creation and development of our Healthier Dancer Programme.
Every year One Dance UK recognises the incredible lasting impact Jane had on the dance sector by dedicating an Award in her name. This Award is presented to individuals who, like Jane, have gone above and beyond the call of duty to move dance forward and enable the art form to thrive.
Bob Lockyer OBE
This Award is named in memory of one of the founding members of Dance UK, Bob Lockyer OBE (1942 – 2022).
An innovator, a collaborator, a director, a patron, a founding member of One Dance UK and so much more, Bob Lockyer OBE truly was an inspiration, a mentor and a friend to all of us in the sector.
The Bob Lockyer Digital Innovation in Dance Award aims to pay homage to Bob and his incredible legacy. This award – one that showcases work using technology and digital to innovate how we see, experience, understand and use dance – will also pay tribute to Bob’s incredibly vibrant mind and all the innovation he bought to the sector.
Every year One Dance UK recognises the incredible impact Bob had on the dance sector by dedicating an Award in his name. This Award is presented to individuals who thrive on technological innovation, digital creativity and more.
With thanks to our supporters
We are also grateful to our event contributors and associates.
For full T&Cs regarding the One Dance UK Awards, please click here