‘Turner prize for dance’ winner Christos Papadopoulos: failure, friction and my forgotten youthquake

Amid galloping global crises, the Greek choreographer has returned to his revolutionary ideals. He explains how asking the near-impossible of dancers brings a shared joy

Christos Papadopoulos is talking about how to spend £40,000. Specifically the winnings he scooped from the first ever Rose international prize for choreography in 2025 – the dance world’s equivalent of the Turner and the Booker. The Greek choreographer came out top of four finalists, picked by a judging panel including Arlene Phillips and PJ Harvey, for his piece Larsen C, a shadowy, trance-like and glacially paced crescendo of a dance named after an Antarctic ice shelf.