Dance: Peter Lindley

Disbelief greeted the news that Sylvie Guillem would retire next year after a final world tour but it was already known in June that her legendary performance of Push with Russell Maliphant and the truly amazing Two at London’s Coliseum theatre were to be her last ever revival of these brilliant contemporary works.

By the time Guillem appeared with Akram Khan at Sadler’s Wells for the pulsating and passionate performance of Sacred Monsters at the end of November, the rumours about her retirement were confirmed.

Besides honouring Guillem, the doyenne of contemporary dance, Akram Khan went on to dominate the year as the most active of experimental performers and choreographers, whose thirst to develop new techniques has made his contribution to British dance impossible to deny.

Earlier in the year, paired with Tamara Rojo in Dust for the courageous production of Lest We Forget by English National Ballet (ENB), Khan was in a sober but no less passionate mood for the remembrance of soldiers lost.

Torobaka showed Khan’s seemingly endless versatility, again in a duet, with Israel Galvan in a performance of measured aggression which incorporated flamenco, ballet and kathak dance.

Khan’s choreography for his company’s production of iTMOi (pictured)was the most mysterious and imaginative production of the year, along with Crystal Pite’s Tempest Replica, both offering dynamic and unique audio-visual inputs and set design to support the dance.

More traditionally, ENB took on massive national tours and startled the classical ballet scene with a blazing revival of Le Corsaire and then with a production of Swan Lake towards the end of the year.

In both of these works the success of hyper-technical and athletic classical ballet seems to be permanent points of distinction for the ENB.

Their tours de force throw down a gauntlet to more contemporary companies as to which of the two oppositional forms is going to be most dynamic in 2015.

Theatre: Paul Foley

Despite the efforts of Cameron, Osborne and crew to throw a shroud of gloom across the country, the marvellous regional theatres in north-west England have entertained, cheered and inspired audiences across the region.

Manchester’s Royal Exchange theatre kicked off the year with the wonderful Suranne Jones in a spellbinding production of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando.

Summer saw the city swing with its fabulous jazz festival and theatre-goers were offered a real treat with Laura Eason’s hilarious adaptation of Around the World in Eighty Days.

As the city basked in an Indian Summer the big talking point was Maxine Peake’s Hamlet. The weight of expectation was huge and Peake was more than up to it as she delivered a polished performance as the doomed Prince.

Elsewhere in the city, the Library Theatre although still homeless, finally became HOME, with the new arts venue — born from the Cornerhouse and Library theatre — due to open in spring.

Even without a base the company had two outstanding productions this year. Angel Meadow was a deeply disturbing yet fascinating interactive piece about Irish immigrants living in Manchester’s slums. The polar opposite was a beautifully uplifting Romeo and Juliet staged in an old Victorian Baths.

Away from Manchester, the Bolton Octagon staged Stella Feehily’s wonderful satire on Tory health policy in This May Hurt a Bit (above) — a real piece of good old agit-prop theatre and a call to arms in defence of the NHS.

In Liverpool there was the welcome reopening ofthe city’s Everyman theatre. The magnificent new building has just bagged the Stirling Prize for Architecture but it is what goes on within the building that counts.

The season so far has not disappointed, and if you need relief from those Tory blues then pop along to Little Red Riding Hood for what must be the funkiest panto around this Christmas.

Music: Susan Darlington

Every set has its defining moment. Angel Olsen (below), however, managed to eclipse every memorable instant with yet another one when she played at Manchester’s Soup Kitchen.

Touring in support of breakthrough album Burn Your Fire For No Witness, the Missourian managed to turn heartbreak and loneliness into experiences of communal beauty.

There was a rawness to her delivery on the Neko Case-esque country noir of May As Well and the Leonard Cohenisms of White Fire that left the audience in no doubt that she was the real deal.

Emotional honesty was also found in Sharon Van Etten’s Are We There (Jagjaguwar). Warmer and more soulful than Tramp, the album that brought her into the mainstream, it tipped a hat to Ryan Adams on Every Time The Sun Comes Up and Joan As Policewoman on lead track Taking Chances.

It nonetheless maintained an intimacy in painfully cathartic lyrics — “Burn my skin so I can’t feel you” — and with its uplifting brass motif and bleary-eyed comment on the fallout of a long-term relationship, recorded quite possibly the best track of the year with Tarifa.

If Olsen and Van Etten were about hushed confessionals, then Courtney Love reclaimed her crown as queen of the big rock gesture when she played at Manchester Academy.

It’s easy to forget how many great songs she has in her back catalogue given her ever-diminishing musical returns and latter-day tabloid caricature.

The set nonetheless packed hit after hit, from Plump — whose blazing melody is matched by smart feminist lyrics — through to the pre-Haim AM rock of Malibu.

Entertaining and charismatic, the show’s chaotic feel was in sharp contrast with St Vincent at Leeds Metropolitan University. A highly choreographed performance art set, it demonstrated David Byrne’s clear influence on Annie Clark.

The Manhattanite’s former collaborator could also be heard on the electronic funk of Digital Witness, taken from her eponymous fourth album.

Far from being a shameless copyist, however, Clark succeeded in turning inspiration into pop extravaganza.

Swapping robotic head moves with band members, lounging across a three-tiered podium, and playing guitar with the easy fluidity of Prince, she turned knowingness into emotion.

There were many of the same elements in the tUnE-yArDs show at The Cockpit in Leeds. Choreographed and self-aware, Merrill Garbus nonetheless brought more of a DIY ethic to her performance.

With its junk-shop aesthetic of ferocious Haitian poly-rhythms, jagged handclaps, playground chants and funky bass-lines, the New Englander managed to bridge the gap between the Tom Tom Club, the failed ambition behind Arcade Fire’s Reflektor and M.I.A.

Filled with bold choreography and unexpected musical turns, her set was a joyously contradictory affair that had more ideas than most acts find in their entire career.