The Rose Prize is A Promising Concept with a Disappointing Outcome for the Future of Dance

When I first heard about the Rose International Dance Prize, I was extremely hopeful and cautiously intrigued – the Rose Prize would mean to dance what the Booker Prize means for fiction novels or the Oliviers for British theatre. An international prize of this significance would not only encourage creativity in the medium but also bring outside attention to it, drawing more people to a theatre to watch their first dance show.

My criteria for looking at the Rose Prize finalists were therefore decided accordingly: (1) how much does this piece push the boundaries of dance as we know it, and (2) how accessible is this piece for people who are not dance experts? With this year being the first edition of the competition, the results would be telling: does the judging committee value these two components equally, or would they prioritise either one? Let’s take a look at the four finalists of the main Rose Prize (for pieces lasting 50 minutes or longer by experienced choreographers) and the outcome of the award. 

Dancers performing An Untitled Love, which was choreographed by Kyle Abraham. Photo Credit: Tristram Kenton

An Untitled Love, choreographed by Kyle Abraham

An Untitled Love follows ten dancers as they navigate a sitcom-esque storyline about love in Black American communities. A cosy set, comedic dialogue, and melodic music by D’Angelo and the Vanguards all worked harmoniously, allowing Abraham’s choreographic genius to shine through. His ability to combine steps from different styles into one cohesive sequence truly stunned me: in a pas de deux (duet), a dancer performed a classical ballet move, a développé, followed by street dance-inspired steps, none of which felt out of place due to Abraham’s deep understanding of various dance vocabularies. 

I particularly enjoyed the reversal of classical dance roles, where men usually partner women. Here, the female dancers would instead support their male partners in lifts and leans, for example. I find that choreographers often have trouble playing with these gender roles, and it consequently feels forced and out of place – in An Untitled Love, however, these reversals have their place and add to the story by showing the different facets of love. The dancers executed this piece brilliantly, bringing the audience into the atmosphere. 

Dancers performing CARCAÇA, which was choreographed by Marco da Silva Ferreira. Photo supplied by the production.

CARCAÇA, choreographed by Marco da Silva Ferreira 

Although this was not a style I would typically gravitate towards, I rather enjoyed CARCAÇA, a piece for ten dancers and two live musicians by Portuguese choreographer Marco da Silva Ferreira. The piece explores how communities are formed through social dancing and questions the place of folk and club dancing in our society. Many elements of this piece worked splendidly: the live drummer’s energy was incredible, the experimentation in the movements and formations was extremely creative, and the finale had the entire audience holding their breath. 

My only reticence about this piece is the partial nudity of one of the female dancers, which I felt was out of place. Halfway through the show, one of the dancers appeared on stage with her leotard loosely rolled down to her waist. I wondered, for a huge chunk of the performance, if this was intentional or a costume mishap, given that the dancers had changed costumes multiple times throughout the piece. While this action fits the rebellious attitude of the piece, the rolled-down leotard and the fact that this was only done by one dancer make this choice feel like a last-minute decision: crucially, it had no purpose. This choice is too distracting to be effective in any way: it feels as though the choreographer was being provocative for the sake of it, which I don’t believe is creative. 

Dancers performing LARSEN C, which was choreographed by Christos Papadopoulos. Photo Credit: Tristram Kenton

LARSEN C, choreographed by Christos Papadopoulos

This piece felt like watching an extremely drawn-out magic trick where the final reveal is neither surprising nor interesting. LARSEN C was audacious for live dance: choreographer Christos Papadopoulos was inspired by how icebergs hide their inner workings and aspired to create similar illusions on stage. In practice, this meant using lighting and syncopated movements to make the dancers appear to float, levitate, and glide across the floor. However, my main criticism of this piece is that it felt like a technical exploration of a concept rather than a fully fleshed, impactful piece. In other words, this felt like a paper with squares filled in with different watercolour techniques rather than a beautifully painted landscape. There is no story to this piece, something fairly common in contemporary dance, but the piece does not explore any emotional concept, only a technical one. The dancers performed completely emotionless, repeating the same movements for the entirety of the piece. This also happened to be the longest piece presented, lasting 1 hour and 25 minutes. I have loved dance forever and can sit through pretty much anything – yet still, I checked the time three times during this performance. 

Dancers performing Encantado, which was choreographed by Lia Rodrigues. Photo Credit: Tristram Kenton

Encantado, choreographed by Lia Rodrigues

The last piece to be presented, Encantado, was a pleasant surprise to finish with, but one that I think not everyone would have enjoyed. Put bluntly: it features nine totally nude male and female dancers who occasionally wrap themselves in pieces of fabric on stage. I found that the initial discomfort went away as the music and movement built up in a joyous celebration of human life and bodies. This feeling was not shared by all of the audience members that I spoke to, and I think that my dance background – with its constant, unashamed focus on looking at the human body –may have allowed me to look past the initial shock. I thought that the piece went on for a little too long and became quite repetitive, but at the same time, the length was needed for the audience to see beyond the nudity. 

What I enjoyed about this piece is its exploration of life. It was inspired by Rodrigues’s daughter’s pregnancy, and several dancers carried fabrics as bellies, reminding me of Modern dance pioneer Martha Graham’s ‘life starts at the womb’ ideology. The dancers also used the 140 pieces of fabric to create outfits and personas, acting as characters, animals, children, and the elderly, sharing the joy of being alive and having fun with a community. I think the nudity, paired with these features, allowed for a wholistic piece about our common humanity, how we are all simply bodies draped in fabrics giving us a role in society. While this point could have been made with flesh-coloured leotards, for example, the nudity allowed the audience to truly dig into the piece’s intention and leave with a clearer message. 

Dancers performing Encantado, which was choreographed by Lia Rodrigues. Photo Credit: Tristram Kenton

THE JUDGING PANEL CHOSE... POORLY

All of these pieces had strong aspects, and while none were perfect, the piece I felt deserved this win was Abraham’s An Untitled Love. Although it was not as groundbreaking in terms of thematic and technical exploration as the other three, the execution of the choreographic vision was excellent, making it a fantastic dance piece beyond the context of the Rose Prize. To me, this piece is exactly what a dance prize should be about: a piece that is not overly complex and inaccessible to the average viewer but still challenges norms and traditions to tell a story. While more creative in certain aspects, I felt that the rest of the choreographers somewhat missed in the execution of their visions. 

To my great surprise, Christos Papadopoulos took home the £40,000 cash prize and the Rose trophy for LARSEN C. This decision angered me deeply. While this piece was undoubtedly creative, it felt unfinished and lost. My anger lay less in the quality of the winning piece and more in the reasoning behind the jury’s decision.

The jury was made up of five judges of different backgrounds: former principal dancer and current academic Christopher Bannerman, singer-songwriter PJ Harvey, actress Karthika Naïr, choreographer Dame Arlene Phillips, and fashion designer Samuel Ross MBE. While I do think that opinions outside of the dance world are crucial to determining the quality of a piece, the majority composition of non-dancers in this lineup is disingenuous as they may not fully understand the impact of their decision on the dance world. 

It felt like an extremely lazy and selfish decision of the jury to pick the most divisive piece of the selection: LARSEN C was, after all, the only piece on this list to have been booed (something quite rare in today’s dance world). It seemed as though the judges wanted to gain status for being ‘intellectual dance critics’ rather than wanting to celebrate the creation of dance works. 

Dancers performing LARSEN C, which was choreographed by Christos Papadopoulos. Photo Credit: Tristram Kenton

Additionally, the judges did not provide any justification for their choice, a clear sign that it was not thought out properly. Jury chair Professor Christopher Bannerman simply described the difficulty of having to compare the “highly individualistic vision” of each piece. Had they justified it, they would likely have argued that we, the audience, ‘just didn’t get it’. I truly doubt there was something to ‘get’. A piece that does not get a feeling across is not superiorly intellectual; it is simply an example of poor communication. 

This compels me to question the impact that the Rose Prize will have on the dance world. Will it truly help push creativity in the art form or encourage choreographers to create soulless pieces purely displaying technical features? If the winning pieces continue to be incomprehensible explorations of concepts with no emotion, I expect the Rose Prize to fuel the exclusivity of the dance world, where audiences almost fear going to a show as they are scared they will not understand it. 

While these pieces, in all of their uniqueness, were incredibly difficult to compare, a clearer set of criteria could have facilitated this task for the judges and forced them to make decisions that do not merely increase their status in the art world but instead are actually beneficial to dance. I truly hope the next edition of this prize will learn from these mistakes, for the sake of the future of dance.