12.09.2019
For a Life in the Arts
Choreographer Nacho Duato has added yet another accolade to his extensive collection of professional achievements, having been awarded the Léonide Massine Prize in the category ‘For a Life in the Arts’ on 8 September. The prize is also known as the Positano Award, after the Italian town on the Amalfi Coast near Naples where the awards ceremony is held every year. Absorbed in his work on his own version of La Bayadère, Nacho Duato has barely stepped outside the Mikhailovsky Theatre’s rehearsal rooms of late, but he allowed himself a few days away from St. Petersburg to collect the award in person.
The Positano Award was established in 1969 by the composer and poet Alberto Testa. Ten years later, after the death of Léonide Massine (Leonid Myasin), one of Diaghilev’s closest allies, the award was named after the famous Russian choreographer. For many decades, Massine was the owner of Li Galli, a small archipelago consisting of three islands near Positano, where he set up a ballet school. The choreographer’s descendants later sold the islands to Rudolph Nureyev.
The award is now in its forty-seventh year. The current director of the award is the Italian singer and musician Laura Valente. Other winners of the Positano Prize this year include the ballet instructor Gilbert Mayer and dancers Svetlana Zakharova and Jacopo Tissi of the Bolshoi Theatre, Vadim Muntagirov of the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, and Camilla Mazzi of the Mariinsky Theatre.
The Positano Award was established in 1969 by the composer and poet Alberto Testa. Ten years later, after the death of Léonide Massine (Leonid Myasin), one of Diaghilev’s closest allies, the award was named after the famous Russian choreographer. For many decades, Massine was the owner of Li Galli, a small archipelago consisting of three islands near Positano, where he set up a ballet school. The choreographer’s descendants later sold the islands to Rudolph Nureyev.
The award is now in its forty-seventh year. The current director of the award is the Italian singer and musician Laura Valente. Other winners of the Positano Prize this year include the ballet instructor Gilbert Mayer and dancers Svetlana Zakharova and Jacopo Tissi of the Bolshoi Theatre, Vadim Muntagirov of the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, and Camilla Mazzi of the Mariinsky Theatre.
