news release

Geneva / London, 23 June 2001 - The 9th Eurovision Young Dancers competition was won by Dawid Kupinski and Marcin Kupinski (Poland). In second and third place respectively were Jeroen Verbruggen (Belgium) and Golan Yosef and Maartje Hermans (The Netherlands). The competition took place at the Linbury Studio Theatre in the prestigious setting of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London on 23 June 2001.

Dawid Kupinski, 16 years old, and Marcin Kupinski, 18 years old, took first place dancing Legend Op. 17 excerpts, Brothers, choreography by Emil Wesoowski. They outranked Jeroen Verbruggen, 18 years old, who performed Hyperballad, a piece choreographed by Jeroen Verbruggen and Gunnlauger Egilsson, and Golan Yosef, 17 years old, and Maartje Hermans, 19 years old, with Perfect Skin, choreography by Ed Wubbe.

22 competitors aged between 15 and 21 battled it out to be selected for the final.

This event takes place every two years alternating with the Young Musician of the Year competition. Started in 1985 in Reggio Emilia, Italy, the Eurovision Grand Prix for Young Dancers is of considerable importance for young artists and for public service broadcasters, who are aware of the significance of cultural events and make a conscious effort to promote the arts

This competition for the finest and most talented modern and classical European dancers is sponsored by the EBU. The prize was awarded by Deborah Bull, one of the principal dancers of the Royal Ballet who presented the event on behalf of an international jury. The jury was chaired by Matthew Bourne, choreographer and director of the dance theatre company Adventures in Motion Pictures (United Kingdom), and was assisted by Sam Wuersten, director of the Holland Dance Festival in The Hague and the Rotterdam Dance Academy (Netherlands), Amanda Miller, choreographer and director of the Ballet Freiberg (USA), Maina Gielgud, guest repetiteur (United Kingdom) and Monique Veaute, managing director of the Fondazione Roma Europa (France).

The final was broadcast live on BBC, this year’s competition organisers, and watched by millions of viewers throughout Europe thanks to the participation of ORF (Austria), VRT/RTBF (Belgium) CyBC (Cyprus), CT (Czech Republic), ETV (Estonia), YLE/TV1 (Finland), France 2 (France), ZDF (Germany), ERT (Greece), RTE (Ireland), LT (Latvia), NOS/NPS (Netherlands), NRK (Norway), TVP (Poland), RTVSLO (Slovenia), SVT (Sweden), SRG SSR (Switzerland) and NTU (Ukraine).

Contact :
Patrick Jaquin. EBU Communications
00 41 22 717 20 33; jaquin@ebu.ch

(C) 2001 EBU