Viengsay Valdés receives Italy's Positano Prize for Dance

September 6, 2021

The first ballerina and director of the National Ballet of Cuba (BNC), Viengsay Valdés, received last Saturday the Positano Dance Prize Léonide Massine, awarded in Italy.

In announcing the decision the day before, the jury of this award —one of the oldest and most prestigious in the world— considered the artist an artistic heir of prima ballerina assoluta Alicia Alonso and distinguished her in the category of best ballerina on the international stage.

The tribunal presided over by the director of the international magazine BALLET2000, Alfio Agostini, described Valdés as a ballerina of high academic level, of virtuoso technique and intense stage presence, interpreter of all the great roles in the repertory in Cuba and in the world.

Furthermore, it acknowledged that for a time the artist joined the great Alicia Alonso in the direction of the BNC and, as of 2019, assumed the position of artistic director.

The award that Viengsay Valdés receives this year in Positano is also a tribute to the memory of Alicia Alonso, a legend of world ballet until her death in October last year, at the age of 99, according to the official statement.

According to the text, the epidemiological situation caused by COVID-19 forced the organizers of the award to forgo in 2020 the traditional in-person gala and they chose to broadcast a virtual ceremony last Saturday, at 20:00, local time, through social media.

The jury decided to award the special prize for an entire career to Anthony Dowell, whom they describe as a danseur noble par excellence, undoubtedly the greatest classical male dancer of his generation.

Dowell was artistic director of the Royal Ballet of London for 15 years until 2001 and remains active as a teacher and artistic advisor.

Valdés and Dowell won the award in the most outstanding categories; but during the gala the winners for 2020 in other categories were also announced.

For the online ceremony, each winner was asked to send a video message and a compilation clip of some moments from relevant performances.

The Positano Dance Prize Léonide Massine is one of the highest honors to which a dancer can aspire and originated on the coast of the Italian city of Positano for being a destination that captivated many ballet celebrities of the twentieth century.

Truly exceptional figures have been distinguished with the awards for best male or female dancer or for an entire career, among them, Carla Fracci, Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, Maurice Béjart, Vladimir Vasiliev, Natalia Makarova, Alessandra Ferri, Mats Ek and Ana Laguna.

Likewise it was received by Eleonora Abbagnato, Manuel Legris, Roberto Bolle, Uliana Lopatkina, Tamara Rojo, Ivan Vassiliev, Natalia Osipova, Yuri Grigorovich, Vladimir Vassiliev and Alicia Alonso.

In addition to Agostini, the jury consisted of Nina Loory (artistic director of the Benois de la Danse Prize, Moscow), Brigitte Lefèvre (former director of the Ballet of the Paris Opera and artistic director of the Cannes Dance Festival), Laura Valente (general director of the Positano Dance Prize).

It was completed by dance critics Roger Salas, from El País, Spain; and Valeria Crippa, from the newspaper Il corriere della Sera, published in Milan, Italy.