Riccardo Buscarini wins £25,000 dance prize Riccardo Buscarini, an Italian dance artist, has won one of the most lucrative prizes in dance: the £25,000 Place Prize, for his work Athletes. The Place Prize for dance is a biennial competition for UK-based choreographers, which judges commissioned pieces and funds and supports the participating choreographers. Buscarini, who is 28, is the fifth winner, although he was a finalist for the 2011 Place Prize. Athletes, a piece with three female dancers, reflected on competition and the tension between man and machine. Buscarini was championed for it by Telegraph Dance Critic Mark Monahan, who said Athletes was a "shimmeringly atmospheric meditation on emotional closeness and distance knows exactly what it's doing." Fellow Telegraph Dance Critic Sarah Crompton also praised Buscarini, separately from Monahan, when she was on the panel of judges for the competition's semi-final. Buscarini was chosen unanimously as the winner by a panel of judges for the final, which included Bonnie Greer and artistic director of the Young Vic David Lan, after a 10-night run of performances of the works by the four finalists. The other finalists were h2dance (Hanna Gillgren & Heidi Rustgaard) with Duet, Rick Nodine with Dead Gig, a tribute to the Grateful Dead, and Eva Recacha with The Wishing Well. Every night of these performances the audience vote for their favourite, and the nightly winner is granted £1,000. Buscarini's next project is a music and dance collaboration with choreographer Runa Kaiser. Their show Friends will open at The Place in June.