Romanian ballerina Alina Cojocaru, who performs for the Royal Ballet in London, has been nominated for the Critics' Circle National Dance Awards. The awards gala will take place on January 24 next year in London.

Cojocaru has been nominated for the best dancer category, along with Marianella Nuñez, a colleague from the Royal Ballet and Natalia Osipova, ballerina from the Balsoi theater.  Alina Cojocaru was born in 1981 in Bucharest, Romania. At the age of ten she applied and was accepted for a scholarship to the well-known Kiev Ballet School in Ukraine. After her arrival in Kiev she made her debut as Amor in Don Quixote.

In 1999, she moved to the London Royal Ballet, going from team member to principal dancer in less than two years, after her performance as Giselle.  More about Alina Cojocaru in our Famous Romanians article here.