One Dance UK Awards

 

The One Dance UK Awards is an annual celebration for people from across the dance sector to unite, celebrate, acknowledge and reward the people who have made an impact on the vibrant UK dance landscape! Championing the excellent work of dance artists, teachers, practitioners, educators, schools, choreographers, companies, venues, scientists, and writers, this is a glittering evening of celebrations, all for those who contribute to the dance sector throughout the UK.

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

White female wheelchair dancer with black hair. With one arm up and one down with wheel chair side on. Wearing silver sparkle dress and silver high heeled shoes in front of hot pink studio background.

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.

Global majority male LGBTQ+ vogue dancer with slick back blonde hair, kneeling with one hand behind head and the other hand stretched out gesturing stop. On bright purple photo background.

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.

white male dancer lunging to the right with arms pointed to the left. Black outfit and white trainers. On blue studio background.

Health & Wellbeing in Dance Award

This award is for any person, team, or organisation whose work has had a transformational impact on the health and wellbeing of people who dance, encompassing dancers’ health and dance for health.  

global majority dancer with hands infront and around face on hot pink studio background. Wearing marbled purple crop top.

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. 

Two global majority LGBTQ+ male voguing dancers. Wearing pink tops in a purple studio. Standing next to eachother with outside hands leaning over their heads and joining together in the middle over eachother.

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.

LGBTQ+ voguing dancer with curly red mohawk and black beard, holding onto his elbow. Wearing see-through black top on purple photo backdrop.

The Dance Spotlight Award

This award is a chance to shine a light on those whose work is vital to the production and support of dance. Bringing those back of the house to centre stage, this could be a Producer, Programmer, Venue, Admin teams, School & community leaders to name just a few.

contemporary dancer flicking hair to the right side of the image with hands held either side of her face on bright blue studio backdrop. white blonde females wearing a long purple dress.

The Green Dance Award

This award celebrates any form of work that uses dance as a tool to spotlight and respond to environmental & climate issues. Work can be in any genre, scale, location or remit within dance.

 

South Asian dancer holding both hands crossed over her chest and under her chin looking to the topof the screen. Wearing traditional purple dress with gold belt bracelets necklace and head jewlery with gold nose ring. Bright purple studio background.

Young People’s Dance Champion Award

This award spotlights individual dance educators  (working with children or young people from pre-school through to higher education) who are championing dance to be experienced by all young people, regardless of style, genre or setting.

This Award is supported by the Royal Academy of Dance.

South Asian dancer holding one hand to face and the other towards her elbow on hot pink studio backdrop. Wearing traditional orange dress with gold belt bracelets necklace and head jewellery with gold nose ring.

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.  

This Award is supported by Performers College.

White female wheelchair dancer with black hair. With one hand holding her ear and the other arm pointed to the right hand side of the image, her head and wheel chair side on. Wearing black top and trousers in front of hot pink studio background.

The Bob Lockyer Award for Digital Innovation in Dance

This award showcases individuals or organisations that use technology and digital to innovate how we see, experience and understand dance.  

 

contemporary dancer looking up to the top left of the image holding her face with one arm behind her head on hot pink background. White, long curly blonde haired female wearing black trousers, purple leotard, black blazer and a diamond head cap.

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.

With thanks to Silver Sponsors:

Harlequin Floors

https://uk.harlequinfloors.com/en/

With thanks to Bronze Sponsors:

Equity

https://www.equity.org.uk/
"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."
Andrew Hurst MBE, Chief Executive One Dance UK
Two global majority LGBTQ+ male voguing dancers. Wearing pink tops and blue jeans on purple studio background.

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