Darcey Bussell agrees to be judge for Dance Photographer of the Year! #DancePOTY

Darcey Bussell at the Royal Opera House, Summer 2012, (c) Carole Edrich 2012

There’s not even a day left before I go to Andalusia on a photojournalistic tour of the cultural roots of flamenco and there are a hundred other things that must be done before I go, but I had to share this. I interviewed Darcey by phone this morning for a feature I’m doing for Dance Today’s March issue. She was brilliant (she always is) and I’ll share whatever doesn’t go into the article on this blog in time. After the interview I told her about DancePOTY, the prizes and what I was doing with it and asked her if she’d be willing to be a judge. She said yes! I’m so thrilled I had to share the news with as many people as I could, which is why I’m blogging it here.

I’ve been working on DancePOTY for about 4 years now. It had to take a back seat while I was recovering from the breast cancer but I’m going to launch it in about a month. There are some fantastic dance travel prizes, I’ve had agreement with various magazines that the winners’ images will be published (mostly conditional on the quality of the shots, but I know they’ll be brilliant) and even have great exhibition venues lined up.Once I’ve tidied up the loose ends (when I’m back from Spain) I’ll do a pre-launch campaign and then launch the competition itself. You’ll read about it on this blog first though, so watch this space.

This image is one of a series I shot last year in the Royal Opera House on a cover shoot for Dance Today.