New Year’s honours

Posted on January 5, 2015

The New Year’s honours list included several awards for services to dance.

Jeanetta Laurence (pictured), associate director of The Royal Ballet, receives an OBE for her services to ballet. MBEs went to former Royal Ballet ballerina Marguerite Porter, director of the Yorkshire Ballet Summer School, and to Janet Smith, principal of the Northern School of Contemporary Dance.

Several directors of dance-friendly organisations were also recognised, with a CBE going to Jude Kelly, artistic director of London’s Southbank Centre, an OBE to Stuart Mark Griffiths, chief executive of Birmingham Hippodrome, Birmingham Royal Ballet’s home theatre, and an MBE going to Paul Kerryson, artistic director of the Curve, Leicester.

Designer Es Devlin, whose work includes The Rodin Project with Russell Maliphant, receives an OBE, as do Joseph Seelig, co-founder of London International Mime Festival, and Faith Liddell, director of Festivals Edinburgh.

Zoe Anderson

Zoë was born in Edinburgh, and saw her first dance performances at the Festival there. She is the dance critic of The Independent, and has also written for The Independent on Sunday, The Scotsman and Dancing Times. In 2002, she received her doctorate from the University of York for a thesis on “Nationhood and epic romance: Ariosto, Sidney, Spenser”. She is the author of The Royal Ballet: 75 Years and The Ballet Lover’s Companion.