The Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance is an annual award presented by the Society of London Theatre in recognition of achievements in professional London theatre. The awards were established as the Society of West End Theatre Awards in 1976, and renamed in 1984 in honour of English actor and director Laurence Olivier.
This award was first presented in 1977, as Outstanding Achievement of the Year in Ballet, then was retitled to Outstanding Individual Performance of the Year in a New Dance Production in 1983, before settling on the current title in 1986. With the exception of 1983âÂÂ1985, when the criteria focused only on an individual dancer, this award`s criteria covers the breadth of a commingled group of specialties, including: dancers, choreographers, designers (individual or combination of costume, visual, set, lightingin dance, as opposed to the individual Olivier awards for designer categories, which also exist), and artistic directors.