The craftsmanship that went into each exquisite glass trophy awarded at last night’s Australian Dance Awards parallels the choreography of a perfectly executed routine.

“It took several hours to make just one, and I needed 11 of them,” artist Matthew Day Perez said.

“It is not like a normal piece of art, you know what the final product is meant to look like.

“There was a lot of going back and forth on each one.”

A re-design of the awards this year moved them away from a heavy stainless steel trophy to a glass finish, which reflects the elegance and grace of dance.

“The design is simple and straight forward, and is based on a dancer’s sweeping arm, focusing on the curves.

“It’s meant to be a light and airy design.”

Perez recently completed an 18-month Fulbright Scholarship as a research fellow under the watchful eye of ANU School of Art Glass Workshop head Richard Whiteley.

He said Whiteley’s guidance helped him through this recent project.

“Richard does amazing work, and I don’t think I could do a project like this had I not had his guidance,” Perez said.

“I had to make 11 identical pieces and there were times during the project when I thought I was actually channelling Richard.

“His level of professionalism is something that is really unrivalled.

“That’s a reflection of one of the great attributes ANU has, which is its commitment to quality.”

Perez, from Illinois in the United States, has been working with glass since he was a “wee lad”, stumbling upon his first stain glass workshop at the age of 13.

Seventeen years later he still gets a real buzz out of working with glass and said hand-crafting the dance awards was something pretty special.

“Each of the names and titles on the trophies were sandblasted into the glass.

“There was a moment a few nights ago, when I was sandblasting in the name on the lifetime achievement award, when I suddenly thought ‘wow’ this is something really permanent.

“This is for someone that has made their whole life about dance, it’s a true honour to them, and I knew then it had to be as perfect as possible.”