The London Awards for Art and Performance is the country's most expansive awards and recognises artists and performers across many art-forms. Each is presented to an individual or team who have made an outstanding contribution to their art form.

Who better than the nominees themselves to judge each category. We'll be asking nominees in each of the categories to pick their top artist/s and from that we'll arrive at the shortlist and award winner who will receive the trophy. The shortlist and winner will be announced at the Presentation Ceremony in June.

There will also be a public vote, where anyone can vote online. However, this will only be taken into account if there's a tie in the nominee votes.

Long list in competition (click on title for more) - nominations: 15

London Dance Award Nomination Holly Noble: 'Full marks... to Holly Noble's chutzpah in using Mozart's Requiem for Fawn.. Noble brought out a tenderness between Emma Fisher and Oliver Wraith, a solicitous shepherding of each other through this overwhelming piece of music that was a quantum leap from anything else in the whole evening.'

Venetia Twigg · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Feb 18

London Dance Award Nomination Kristen McNally: '[on choreographing Lonesome Gun] .. she sends out a posse of rangy cowgirls led by the coolly excellent Hayley Forskitt. These are stereotypes who know they're stereotypes, and their every cliched move is taut with irony. In a deft mood-flip, Forskitt duets with Whitehead. The dance is beautifully crafted, and this seems to be her "authentic" self, feeling real longing, real pain.'

Venetia Twigg · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Feb 06

London Dance Award Nomination Gary Avis: 'Then he is amongst them, a larger than life figure, shaking magic dust from his hat, performing magic tricks—making marionettes dance, a boy fly and time stand still. Gary Avis, splendid character actor/dancer towering over them all, is made for the role. Sweeping cloak, grand gestures, but reassuringly warm.'

Venetia Twigg · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Jan 26

London Dance Award Nomination Kate Prince: '[on Some Like It Hip Hop] ..a fizzing tale of love, gender politics, lost daughters and heroic librarians. The music and dancing are superb: everything in this show has wit, heart and magnificent energy.'

Venetia Twigg · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Jan 16

London Dance Award Nomination Edward Watson: 'In some ways, the work [Watson in a dance adaptation of Kafka’s Metamorphosis] is a solo tour de force, as Watson, smeared with the oily goo that Gregor's new body hideously exudes, knots himself into horrifyingly dehumanised shapes... Only Watson's lost, staring eyes retain any element of Gregor's human soul.'

Venetia Twigg · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Jan 12

London Dance Award Nomination Cathy Waller: '.. currently resident choreographer with the critically acclaimed Dance Offensive in Cambridgeshire… Contemporary Dance and Hip Hop are juxtaposed and integrated in Cathy’s choreography.'

Venetia Twigg · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Jan 09

London Dance Award nomination Heather Eddington: 'What makes Forgetting Natasha – directed by Heather Eddington – genuinely heart-rending, yet surprisingly life-affirming, is how the brutal effects of dementia are translated, without phoney sentimentality or hyperventilating drama into convincing words, movements and film images.'

Venetia Twigg · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Dec 19

London Dance Award Nomination Wayne McGregor: 'If McGregor's choreography is a metaphor for violence and injury, it is also about the heroic human impulse to survive.'

Venetia Twigg · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Dec 11

London Dance Award nomination Sir Peter Wright: ‘..gets pretty much everything spot-on, from his lucid account of the plot to the gorgeously crystalline formations for the snowflakes.’

Venetia Twigg · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Dec 10

London Dance Award nomination Lauren Cuthbertson: 'It's as though she has discovered a world of emotion inside herself – a treasure she didn't know existed.'

Venetia Twigg · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Dec 05

London Dance Award nomination Lloyd Newson: 'More than any play of the past 10 years, it argues emphatically that it isn’t Islamophobic to point out that we have a serious problem here..'

Venetia Twigg · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Nov 24

London Dance Award nomination Richard Alston: '.. these youthful works remain remarkably fresh, and are a delight to watch.'

Venetia Twigg · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Nov 19

London Dance Award nomination Sophie Martin: 'I remember MacMillan’s comment when faced with dancers’ wilfulness: “Why don’t they trust the steps!”. Sophie Martin trusts the steps with all her being, and is magnificent.'

Facebook · Twitter · Email · Nov 08

London Dance Award Nomination Akram Khan: 'He dances the tales of him and his father, London and Bangladesh, his niece’s teenage rebellion, and more bracingly, the impact of social movement from one patch of the world to the other.'

Venetia Twigg · Facebook · Twitter · Email · Oct 25

London Dance Award nomination Ash Mukherjee: '[on Song of the City] .. mysteriously fitting for the subterranean arches of the Southwark Vaults. Its intricately exact percussion of stamps and claps re-animate the gloom, like ghostly gears and levers of the engines that once cut the tunnels. What started as a celebration of India's greatest writer has evolved into an engrossing urban seance.'

Facebook · Twitter · Email · Oct 11