On December 1st, the fourth edition of "Les Étoiles de Ballet2000", the annual Prize organized by our magazine, will take place at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes.

All of Ballet2000’s contributors, who are among the world’s most renowned dance critics and specialists, submit nominations of dancers (from the principal international companies) who impressed them as having shown particular promise over the past year. The nominees come from all over the world (as do our dance critics) and from this first selection we then shortlist those who are available to perform at the gala in Cannes, bearing in mind that the programmes of many of the companies to which they belong are in full swing. This opportunity to perform constitutes a recognition of these dancers’ talent and a prize is awarded to them, without distinction or competition, at the end of the performance.

A key moment of this event, and a sentimental one, is the celebration of one of the divas of dance with the awarding of the "Irène Lidova Lifetime Achievement Award", in memory of a great personality that has been a beacon for several generations of artists of the dance. After Maya Plisetskaya, Alicia Alonso and Rosella Hightower, who received it in succession over the last three years, this year’s Lifetime Achievement Prize will be awarded to Violette Verdy, the only French ballerina of her generation who enjoyed a truly international career.

Violette Verdy was the first ballerina to dance Balanchine’s Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux; tonight this will be performed in her honour by two (more-than-promising) dancers from the Paris Opéra Ballet who have also been noticed abroad: the exquisite Mathilde Froustey and Mathias Heymann.

A young Russian, Daniil Simkin, comes from the Vienna State Opera Ballet; he is a young dancer who is already well known internationally for his virtuoso qualities and who has been dubbed "the new Baryshnikov" by critics. He and Cuban dancer Venus Villa will perform the pas de deux from Le Corsaire.

One of last season’s main events was the return to the international fore of the Martha Graham Dance Company, the ensemble which carries the legacy of America’s great choreographer. All the way from New York, therefore, come Jennifer DePalo and Italian dancer Maurizio Nardi who will be performing Conversation of Lovers (from Graham’s last 1981 work, Acts of Light).

A former San Francisco Ballet principal, currently with the Miami City Ballet and soon to join ABT, Joseph Phillips is one of the new American generation’s "virtuoso" dancers.

Also the Royal Ballet of Flanders, whose director is of pure Forsythian extraction, has its "gems" to offer: Japanese dancer Aki Saito and Flemish Wim Vanlessen, who will be dancing William Forsythe’s ‘standard’ In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated...

This year, for the first time since it was instituted, two dancers from the Ballet Company of La Scala, Milan are going to receive the prize: Beatrice Carbone and Gabriele Corrado who were chosen by Angelin Preljocaj to take the leading roles in his Le Parc, recently re-staged at La Scala. In Cannes, the couple will perform the beautiful final pas de deux from the aforementioned ballet.