The 2012 Standouts—Honorable Mentions

Each December, Pointe chooses the top 10 standout ballet performances of the year. We poll our contributors from around the globe about every dancer they’ve seen, then a team of editors dukes it out to decide the final list. This year’s group was a pretty incredible bunch, ranging from the inimitable Sylvie Guillem to up-and-comer Grace Shibley to the historic day-long livestream from The Royal Ballet. But there were plenty more amazing performances we wish we could have highlighted, inluding the following 14 that we’d like to give an honorable mention:

 

Alicia Amatriain
of Stuttgart Ballet in Itzik Galili’s Mona Lisa

Jeffrey Cirio
of Boston Ballet as Basilio in Rudolf Nureyev’s Don Quixote

Bernice Coppetiers
of Les Ballets de Monte Carlo in Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Altro Canto Part I

April Daly
of The Joffrey Ballet in Christopher Wheeldon’s After The Rain

Karina Gonzalez
of Houston Ballet in the pas de deux of Jorma Elo’s ONE/END/ONE

Joseph Gorak
of American Ballet Theatre as Lensky in John Cranko’s Onegin

David Hallberg
of American Ballet Theatre as Kaschei in Alexei Ratmansky’s Firebird

Greta Hodgkinson
of National Ballet of Canada in Wayne McGregor’s Chroma

Maria Kochetkova
of San Francisco Ballet in John Cranko’s Onegin

Myriam Ould-Braham
of Paris Opéra Ballet in Rudolf Nureyev’s La Bayadère

Chauncey Parsons
of Oregon Ballet Theatre as Albrecht in Marius Petipa’s Giselle

Amber Scott
of The Australian Ballet in Graeme Murphy’s Swan Lake

Eva Trapp
of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre in John Neumeier’s A Streetcar Named Desire

Kara Wilkes
of Alonzo King LINES Ballet in Alonzo King’s Scheherezade