Sky Launches the Sky Arts Awards

Sky is proud to announce the inaugural Sky Arts Awards, taking place on 17th September at The Roundhouse. The ceremony will celebrate the diverse and vibrant landscape of British and Irish arts and culture, rewarding excellence across all the arts, and will be broadcast live on Sky Arts and Freeview. Sky Arts has been free-to-air in the UK since 2020. 

Building on the fantastic legacy of the South Bank Sky Arts Awards, the Sky Arts Awards is the only event in the world that recognises the full spectrum of artistic genres, including classical music, comedy, dance, film, literature, poetry, opera, popular music, television, theatre and visual art. Also unveiled today is a first of its kind ‘Arts Hero’ category, honouring the unsung heroes whose efforts behind-the-scenes are integral to the success of the arts industry. Sky Arts invites the nation to nominate and celebrate these extraordinary individuals.

People working in the arts will be invited to nominate their Arts Hero, with the winner welcomed on-stage at the star-studded ceremony in September to receive their award. Everyone put forward will be entered into a ballot to win a pair of tickets to the awards, in recognition of their contribution to the arts.  

Boy Blue is the radical force that has defined the potential and power of hip-hop dance theatre across the UK. Boy Blue’s dedication to creating world class dance productions is inextricable with their commitment to empowering young talent and thousands of young people have been educated at Boy Blue.

Boy Blue were part of the stellar creative team who created ‘Free Your Mind’ the opening show of Aviva Studios in Manchester. This was a spectacular work used innovative technologies and the story of The Matrix as a prism to examine the big tech companies and their effect on our lives today. This year ‘Cycles’ premiered at Barbican, captivating audience with a focus on the pure wonder of choreography and performance excellence. 

Clod Ensemble for The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady  

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady is a unique staging of the seminal album from jazz composer Charles Mingus in which musicians from the Nu Civilization Orchestra, dancers from Clod Ensemble and audience members all share the floor to create an uncategorizable dance experience which celebrates the power of music and movement and the diversity of ways we listen and move.

A unique and innovative approach sees choreographed sections blended with improvised solos and invitations for the public to take to the dance floor, guided by professional dancers who “sweep up the crowd in a joyful celebration of movement”.

This groundbreaking work is a dance down a rabbit hole of nationality, identity, racism, body-image, culture, death, love, ancestor worship, veneration, innocence and experience, sexuality and shame, defiance, humiliation and awakening. It is a deeply vulnerable and ultimately joyful coming of age story, making it both accessible and profoundly moving to diverse audiences. 

"How To Be A Dancer in Seventy-two Thousand Easy Lessons" pushes the boundaries of traditional dance by blending the mediums of dance and theatre into a compelling narrative. The choreography is characterised by its profound emotional depth, evocative imagery, and technical precision, illustrating Keegan-Dolan’s unparalleled craftsmanship.