Golden Dance Awards: Ballet Sections, Winners and How to Enter

Irish National Youth Ballet won the ballet award at the Golden Dance Awards Ireland 2026, held at the Grand Hotel in Malahide on 5 September. Two further awards went to ballet teaching: Nicola Farcas took Dance Teacher of the Year, and the Joan Denise Moriarty School of Dance took the Community Engagement Award.

The organiser does not publish a results list. Winners are announced one at a time through interview videos on Instagram, which is why this page exists. Twenty-two awards have been announced so far. Three performer titles, Dancer of the Year, Performing Arts Student of the Year and the Pre-Professional award, had not been announced when this page was last updated on 18 September 2026.

Northern Ireland is a separate ceremony with its own winners, at the Culloden Estate in Holywood, County Down, on 26 September 2026.

What it is

The Golden Dance Awards are multi-genre national dance awards run as separate regional ceremonies. The organiser currently runs Northern Ireland, Ireland and Scotland, and has said England is coming. Northern Ireland is in its third year and Ireland in its second. A separate global title, Golden Globe Dancer of the Year, is entered directly rather than through a regional ceremony.

It is not a competition in the sense that Dance World Cup or the AD Competition are. Nobody dances a heat. Dancers, teachers, schools and creatives are nominated through a form, finalists are selected and notified by email, and winners are announced at a black-tie evening. The exception is the performer titles, which are decided on a video audition.

Where ballet sits

Ballet is one of thirteen dance style awards, judged in the Dance Style Excellence group alongside jazz, Irish, line, baton, tap, hip hop, cheerleading, acro, contemporary, lyrical, freestyle and other. A ballet school is judged against other ballet entries for that award, not against hip hop.

The performer titles are the ones worth knowing about, because they are open across every style and a ballet dancer can win one outright:

• Dancer of the Year at 9 and under, 13 and under, and 17 and under

• Performing Arts Student of the Year at the same three ages

• Pre-Professional Dancer or Performing Arts Student of the Year at 18 and over

Northern Ireland runs the same structure, with Highland in place of baton in the style list.

Ireland 2026 winners

Nine of the thirteen style awards have been announced. Contemporary, cheerleading, line and other are still to come, along with the three performer titles.

Two notes on the table. Arkins Dance Academy took two titles, Small Dance School of the Year and the jazz style award. The Large Dance School of the Year award carried a second prize of free Dance World Cup entries. Lee Simpson won Dance Photographer of the Year for the second year running.

Northern Ireland 2026

The Northern Ireland ceremony is on Saturday 26 September 2026 at the Culloden Estate and Spa in Holywood, County Down. It is the third year, finalists have been invited and the evening is sold out.

Winners are not announced on the night in any published form. Ireland held its ceremony on 5 September and began releasing winner interviews on 15 September, a gap of ten days, so the Northern Ireland results should start appearing in early October. This section will be updated as they are.

How nominations and the video audition work

Nominations are submitted through the official form for the region. Anyone can nominate a dancer, teacher, school, choreographer or volunteer.

The three performer titles work differently, and this is where entries get lost:

• A solo audition video of up to two minutes is required.

• The video is uploaded to Dropbox and emailed to the region, with the performer’s full name, dance or performing arts school, and age category.

• Entries without video are not judged.

• Finalists are notified by email.

Ireland uses info@goldendanceawards.ie and Northern Ireland uses info@danceawardsni.com.

How to enter next year

Both editions open nominations months ahead of the ceremony, and both sold out their 2026 evenings, so the invitation matters as much as the nomination. Ireland ran on the first Saturday of September and Northern Ireland on the last, which is a reasonable guide to when the 2027 windows will open.

Any Golden Dance Awards dates currently listed on Ballet.ie appear at the top of this page. Nomination forms are linked from those listings when they open.