MARKETING AND PRESS PACK FOR

6000 miles away Version 12 – Feb 2014

Photo: © Lesley Leslie-Spinks

Content 1. Crediting – Including tour sponsor -Rolex (p.2-3) 2. Brochure copy (p.3) 3. Images (p.3) 4. Logos (p.4) 5. Evening Programme/Freesheet (p.4) 6. Press Quotes (p.4) 7. Biographies (p.5 - 11) – Please confirm which dancers are appearing in specific venues 8. Optional – Approved – Shorter versions of biographies (p.12-14)

For further information contact: Lucy White, Marketing Abigail Desch, Press Sadler’s Wells, Rosebery Avenue Sadler’s Wells, Rosebery Avenue London EC1R 4TN London EC1R 4TN T: 00 44 (0) 207 863 8104 T: 00 44 (0) 207 863 8119 E. [email protected] E: [email protected] Important note All copy must be used as provided. No changes are permitted without the agreement of Sadler’s Wells. All information contained in this document, along with high resolution images, can be downloaded from http://www.sadlerswells.com/tour-marketing/sylvie

All marketing, programmes and press releases must be proofed by Sadler’s Wells and approved by the tour supporter Rolex before going to print, please allow at least 72 hours for the approval process. Please contact Lucy White, [email protected] / +44 (0)20 7863 8104 and Nick Marsden, Corporate Partnerships Manager, Tel +44 (0)20 7863 8138 / [email protected] 1. Crediting (Advance publicity & press release)

The following short billing must appear on all advance publicity including posters, venue/festival brochures and press releases:

SHORT BILLING: Sadler’s Wells London / 6000 miles away Ek/Forsythe/Kylián

A Sadler's Wells London / Sylvie Guillem Production Co-produced by Les Nuits de Fourvière/Département du Rhône, Athens Festival, and Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay

[The following full billing must appear in all programmes]

FULL BILLING:

27’52” *

Choreography: Jiří Kylián Music: Dirk P Haubrich (new composition, based upon 2 themes by Gustav Mahler) Set Design: Jiří Kylián Costume Design: Joke Visser Lighting Design: Kees Tjebbes World Premiere: 21 Feb 2002, Lucent Danstheater, Den Haag NDTII

Dancers: PLEASE ASK WHICH DANCERS ARE PERFORMING

Rearray

Choreography: William Forsythe Music: David Morrow Costume Design: William Forsythe Lighting Concept: William Forsythe Lighting Design Realised by: Rachel Shipp Dancers: Sylvie Guillem & / Massimo Murru*

Bye

Choreography: Music: Ludwig van Beethoven Piano sonata Op. 111, Arietta Recording played by Ivo Pogorelich Set & Costume Design: Katrin Brännström Lighting Design: Erik Berglund Filmographer: Elias Benxon Dancer: Sylvie Guillem

Co-produced by Dansens Hus

* Casting & rep may change in some venues. Please check with Sadler’s Wells.

[Further credits will be required for the programme and will be supplied by Sadler’s Wells at a later date. Please request in plenty of time for your programme deadlines.]

2. Sample Brochure Copy Sadler’s Wells is delighted to present the world premiere of a mixed programme devised and performed by internationally acclaimed dancer and Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist Sylvie Guillem.

Widely recognised as one of the world’s greatest dancers, Sylvie Guillem stars in this new evening of work by three of today’s most important choreographers; Mats Ek, William Forsythe and Jiří Kylián.

This Sadler’s Wells / Sylvie Guillem production features iconic dance-maker William Forsythe’s new duet, Rearray, for her and étoile Nicolas Le Riche / Teatro alla Scala Ballet étoile Massimo Murru [delete as appropriate]

Acclaimed Swedish choreographer Mats Ek’s new solo, Bye, for Guillem, set to Beethoven’s last piano sonata, has been heralded as a “masterpiece” by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Completing the evening is a duet from Kylián’s work 27’52” performed by dancers handpicked by the choreographer.

Following the highly acclaimed Sadler’s Wells’ collaborations, PUSH and Eonnagata, this world premiere evening is a highly-anticipated return to the stage for the ballerina widely acclaimed as ‘the greatest of her generation.’

3. Images

Images can be downloaded from http://www.sadlerswells.com/tour-marketing/sylvie

4. Logos Venues should include the Sadler’s Wells logo on all print including flyers, posters, programmes. Where space is limited (eg media ads) the logo may be omitted and just the line credit used.

On all evening programmes the following credit and logo must be included:

Supported by

Both logos can be downloaded from http://www.sadlerswells.com/tour- marketing/sylvie 5. Evening Programme/Freesheet

Rolex, the international tour supporter, may require a full page colour advert in a prime position in the Sylvie Guillem 6000 miles away evening programme. Please send advert design specifications at least two weeks prior to the programme print deadline to:

Nick Marsden, Corporate Partnerships Manager, Tel +44 (0)20 7863 8138 / [email protected]

Sadler’s Wells to be charged for the advert space at the charity rate.

In the instance that an evening programme is not produced and is replaced with a freesheet Rolex must be credited as outlined in the short billing information in point 1. and go through the proof and approval process as specified at the beginning of this document.

Further logos for the co-producers will also be required and will be supplied at a later date.

6. Press Quotes

“Sylvie Guillem is widely regarded as the most brilliant ballerina of her generation” THE GUARDIAN

“There can be no doubt that Sylvie Guillem is one of the greatest dancers ever” DAILY TELEGRAPH

7. Biographies [Additional biographies will be required. Please request in good time for your programme deadlines]

Sylvie Guillem By John Percival

Pure physical prowess was the beginning of Sylvie Guillem’s career, but it was theatre that seduced her and made her the great star of her generation. Born in Paris, she began as a gymnast with Olympic hopes, but at 11 when she and her group attended the Paris Opera’s ballet school for polishing, she switched ambitions. The teachers accepted her with delight, bowled over by her extraordinary physique, amazing feet, tremendous jump, and equally by her intelligence and determination. Already as a student she attracted attention in the school performances of ballets by David Lichine, Albert Aveline and Attilio Labis. Joining the Paris company at 16, she raced right up the hierarchy, winning promotion every year in the annual competitions.

Rudolf Nureyev, appointed artistic director of the company as she began her third year, gave her a small role in his debut production, , quickly followed by others as he continued diversifying the repertoire. Her swift, light technique

proved radiant in the “Shades” solos of his Bayadère vision scene, her dancing in Balanchine’s Divertimento No 15 showed style. Even more notably, she danced everyone else off stage in Rudi van Dantzig’s No Man’s Land, her powerful dramatic sense creating a convincing portrait of tension and tenderness, anxiety and determined self-sufficiency. In December 1984, aged 19 (and only five days after she had won promotion to première danseuse ranking), Nureyev appointed her étoile, star dancer, coming on stage at the end of her first Swan Lake to make the announcement publicly. Over the next few years many visiting choreographers put her into their creations. William Forsythe led the way with France Danse and later gave her the central role of In the middle, somewhat elevated. Maurice Béjart made Mouvements Rythmes Etudes and Arépo featuring her; she stood out in Carole Armitage’s GV10 and made a brilliant solo for her in Magnificat. Especially influential was the experience of creating Robert Wilson’s minimalist Le Martyre de St Sébastian. chose to mount his In Memory of… specially for her, and she was prominent in the company’s Antony Tudor programme and in MacMillan’s Song of the Earth, also in other works by Balanchine, Béjart and Lifar .Naturally she danced the big classics too: Nureyev particularly liked her in his Don Quixote (“like champagne”, he said), and in 1986 he made the title part in his Hollywood-based Cinderella for her.

However, because the Opéra’s administration would not change her contract to make it easier for her to accept invitations abroad, in 1988 she resigned and made London her main base, with a guest contract at The Royal Ballet. Her roles there have included, besides the classics, Ashton’s Birthday Offering, Cinderella, Marguerite and Armand (Fonteyn’s first replacement) and Month in the Country, MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, Manon, Prince of the Pagodas and Winter Dreams, and Robbins’s The Concert. Her wish for a wider range inspired Royal Ballet productions of Mats Ek’s Carmen and Forsythe’s Herman Schmerman, Steptext and the new Firsttext, and several showpiece dances were given only for her: Robbins’s Other Dances, Béjart’s La Luna, also Victor Gsovsky’s virtuosic Grand Pas Classique, to which she added an unexpected touch of humour.

Travelling worldwide to perform with many companies (including guest appearances at the Opéra), she took further opportunities to enlarge her repertoire, including Rostislav Zakharov’s Fountain of Bakhchisarai for the Kirov Ballet (choosing to play the tough wife Zarema, not Ulanova’s romantic Polish princess) and Agnes de Mille’s Fall River Legend with American Ballet Theatre. Béjart created three further ballets for her (including SissiImpératrice about the eccentricities of the Austro-Hungarian Empress Elisabeth) and cast her in two of his most famous works, Bolero and The Rite of Spring. Mats Ek made two filmed ballets for her with special effects, Wet Woman and Smoke. Collaborations with the film maker Francoise Va Han have documented parts of her career and included her own improvisations, also a strange walking around solo for her, Blue Yellow, commissioned from the independent British choreographer Jonathan Burrows.

Guillem’s interest in modern-dance choreography led her to the experiment of putting on versions of two solos by the German expressionist pioneer Mary Wigman, Summer Dance and The Witch’s Dance, which she showed in an experimental programme at The Hague in 1998. In contrast, that same year she was persuaded by Jorma Uotinen, then director of the Finnish National Ballet, to stage her own new production of one of the oldest classical ballets, . Her purpose, she said, was to restore the logic of the narrative and set it in a more plausible village context. The interesting result was performed by the Finnish company in Helsinki and Paris, then reworked for the Ballet of La Scala, Milan, who showed it also at the New York Met, Covent Garden, Los Angeles and on Spanish and Italian tours.

Maybe this could indicate a possible future for her activities, but for the present Guillem seems largely to have given up traditional classical ballet, in favour of modern choreography. Her current activities effectively began in December 2003 when, at her own urging, she collaborated with the dancers Michael Nunn and William Trevitt and the choreographer Russell Maliphant on a creation, Broken Fall, premiered at Covent Garden Opera House on a joint programme with The Royal Ballet. This led, again with Nunn and Trevitt, to an all- Maliphant programme including a reworked solo for her, given in two seasons at Sadler’s Wells, also in France, Japan, Italy, Switzerland and Germany. And in turn that has led to the present second Maliphant evening, PUSH with two further premieres, another solo for her and the duet for Guillem and Maliphant, Push. This programme has now played two sold out seasons at Sadler’s Wells and has begun an international tour. PUSH was followed in 2006 by Sacred Monsters, a new collaboration with Akram Khan, which premiered at Sadler’s Wells and has toured across Europe, America and Asia and Australia. In 2009 Guillem collaborated with Russell Maliphant and Robert Lepage for Eonnagata, which will tour internationally until 2012 and in June 2012 she was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Biennale di Venezia.

After that, who can tell – but it is impossible to believe that the dance world will lack a strong input of whatever sort from the unique (and much decorated — Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, Officier dans l’Ordre National du Mérite, Officier des Arts et Lettres, and in Britain an honorary CBE) Sylvie Guillem. Mats Ek

Mats Ek is the son of Anders Ek, one of Sweden’s most celebrated actors, and Birgit Cullberg, the choreographer and artistic director for the Cullberg Ballet Company. He was born in Malmö in 1945, and began a short period of dance studies in 1962 with Donya Feuer in Stockholm. In addition, he later took theatre studies in Norrköping. From 1966 to 1973 he worked as stage director and assistant at the Royal Dramatic Theater of Sweden and the Marionette Theatre in Stockholm. In 1972 he re-established his contact with dance, and in 1973 began dancing with the Cullberg Ballet.

In 1974 - 5, he was a member of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Düsseldorf, then made his choreographic debut in 1976 with The Officer’s Servant, for the Cullberg Ballet, the first of many of his works formed on them. Through such early pieces as Soweto (1977) and The House of Bernarda (1978) he began to gain an international profile, one that was strengthened in the Beauty (for the , 1996). After leaving the Cullberg Ballet in 1993 he continued to be prolific in his choreography, producing such works as She was Black (1995), and the TV ballet Smoke (1995), which he reworked as Solo for Two in the following year. He has also become a guest choreographer for the leading companies of the world, working with, among many others, the Royal Swedish Opera, the Norwegian Opera, Stuttgart Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, La Scala, Milan, Metropolitan Opera, New York, and Paris Opéra Ballet. In 2008 he created Place, a pas de deux for Ana Laguna and , and Black Radish for the Royal Swedish Ballet.

Ek’s style has become distinctive for its imaginative interpretations of storylines, in combination with a lyrical approach which conveys through movement the underlying emotions and feelings rather than just the narrative detail. He has retained his interest in other forms of theatre, staging productions of plays including Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta (Orion Theatre, Stockholm, 1998), and Molière’s Don Juan (1999), Racine’s Andromaque (2002) and Strindberg’s A Dream Play (2006) for the Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm. He staged Gluck’s Orphée for the Royal Swedish Opera in 2007 and a production of The Cherry Orchard for the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Moscow (2010).

William Forsythe Raised in New York and initially trained in Florida with Nolan Dingman and Christa Long, Forsythe danced with the Joffrey Ballet and later the Stuttgart Ballet, where he was appointed Resident Choreographer in 1976. Over the next seven years, he created new works for the Stuttgart ensemble and ballet companies in Munich, The Hague, London, Basel, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Paris, New York, and San Francisco. In 1984, he began a 20-year tenure as director of the Ballet Frankfurt, where he created works such as Artifact (1984), Impressing the Czar (1988), Limb’s Theorem (1990), The Loss of Small Detail (1991, in collaboration with composer Thom Willems and designer Issey Miyake), A L I E / N A(C)TION (1992), Eidos:Telos (1995), Endless House (1999), Kammer/Kammer (2000), and Decreation (2003).

After the closure of the Ballet Frankfurt in 2004, Forsythe established a new, more independent ensemble. The Forsythe Company, founded with the support of the states of Saxony and Hesse, the cities of Dresden and Frankfurt am Main, and private sponsors, is based in Dresden and Frankfurt am Main and maintains an extensive international touring schedule. Works produced by the new ensemble include Three Atmospheric Studies (2005), You made me a monster (2005), Human Writes (2005), Heterotopia (2006), The Defenders (2007), Yes we can’t (2008), I Don’t Believe in Outer Space (2008), The Returns (2009) and Sider (2011). Forsythe’s most recent works are developed and performed exclusively by The Forsythe Company, while his earlier pieces are prominently featured in the repertoire of virtually every major ballet company in the world, including The Kirov Ballet, The , The San Francisco Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, England’s Royal Ballet, and The Paris Opera Ballet. Awards received by Forsythe and his ensembles include the New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award (1988, 1998, 2004, 2007) and London’s Laurence Olivier Award (1992, 1999, 2009).

Forsythe has been conveyed the title of Chevalier des Arts et Lettres (1999) by the government of France and has received the German Distinguished Service Cross (1997), the Wexner Prize (2002), the Golden Lion (2010) and the Samuel H.Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement (2012).

Forsythe has been commissioned to produce architectural and performance installations by architectartist Daniel Libeskind, ARTANGEL (London), Creative Time (New York), and the City of Paris. His installation and film works have been presented in numerous museums and exhibitions, including the Whitney Biennial (New York), the Venice Biennale, the Louvre Museum, and 21_21 Design Sight in Tokyo. His performance, film, and installation works have been featured at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, the Venice Biennale and the Hayward Gallery, London.

In collaboration with media specialists and educators, Forsythe has developed new approaches to dance documentation, research, and education. His 1994 computer application Improvisation Technologies: A Tool for the Analytical Dance Eye, developed with the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, is used as a teaching tool by professional companies, dance conservatories, universities, postgraduate architecture programs, and secondary schools worldwide. 2009 marked the launch of Synchronous Objects for One Flat Thing, reproduced, a digital online score developed with The Ohio State University that reveals the organizational principles of the choreography and demonstrates their possible application within other disciplines. Synchronous Objects is the pilot project for Forsythe's “Motion Bank”, a research platform focused on the creation and research of online digital scores in collaboration with guest choreographers.

As an educator, Forsythe is regularly invited to lecture and give workshops at universities and cultural institutions. In 2002, Forsythe was chosen as one the founding Dance Mentor for The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. Forsythe is an Honorary Fellow at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance in London and holds an Honorary Doctorate from the Juilliard School in New York. Forsythe is also a current A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University (2009-2015).

Jiří Kylián

Jiří Kylián (Czechoslovakia, 1947) started his dance career at the age of nine, at the School of the National Ballet in Prague. In 1962 he was accepted as a student at the Prague Conservatory. He left Prague when he received a scholarship for the Royal Ballet School in London in 1967. After this, he left to join the Stuttgart Ballett led by John Cranko. Kylián made his debut as a choreographer here with Paradox for the Noverre Gesellschaft. After having made three ballets for Nederlands Dans Theater (Viewers, Stoolgame and La Cathédrale Engloutie), he became artistic director of the company in 1975. In 1978 he put Nederlands Dans Theater on the international map with Sinfonietta. That same year, together with Carel Birnie, he founded Nederlands Dans Theater II, which served as a bridge between school and professional company life and was meant to give young dancers the opportunity to develop their skills and talents and to function as a breeding ground for young talent. He also initiated Nederlands Dans Theater III in 1991, the company for older dancers, above forty years of age. This three dimensional structure was unique in the world of dance. After an extraordinary record of service, Kylián handed over the artistic leadership in 1999, but remained associated to the dance company as house choreographer until December 2009. Jiří Kylián has created nearly 100 works of which many are performed all over the world. Kylián has not only made works for Nederlands Dans Theater, but also for the Stuttgart Ballet, the Paris Opéra Ballet, Bayerisches Staatsoper Münich, Swedish television and the Tokyo Ballet.

Kylián has worked with many creative personalities of international stature – composers: Arne Nordheim (Ariadne 1997), Toru Takemitsu (Dream Time 1983) - designers: Walter Nobbe (Sinfonietta 1978), Bill Katz (Symphony of Psalms 1978), John Macfarlane (Forgotten Land 1980), Michael Simon (Stepping Stones 1991), Atsushi Kitagawara (One of a Kind 1998), Susumu Shingu (Toss of a Dice 2005), Yoshiki Hishinuma (Zugvögel 2009).

In the summer of 2006, together with Film Art Director, Boris Paval Conen, he created the film CARMEN. It was choreographed “on location" on the surface brown coal mines of the Czech Republic. In 2010, Kylián served as Mentor in Dance in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. In the course of his career, Kylián received many international awards including: "Officer of the Orange Order"- Netherlands, "Honorary Doctorate" - Julliard School New York, three "Nijinsky Awards" - Monte Carlo (best choreographer, company and work), "Benoit de la Dance" - Moscow and Berlin, "Honorary Medal" of the President of the Czech Republic, "Commander of the Legion d'honneur" France, and in 2008 he was distinguished with one of the highest royal honors, the Medal of the Order of the House of Orange given to him by Her Majesty the Queen Beatrix from the Netherlands. [Please confirm which of the two dancers will appear in the Forsythe duet REARRAY with Miss Guillem.]

Nicolas Le Riche Dancer (Rearray)

After joining the Paris Opera Ballet school in 1982, Nicolas was appointed in the Corps de ballet at age 16. Progressing in the ranks each year, he became Sujet in 1990. The following year he received the Cercle Carpeaux prize and was cast in roles in Suite en blanc (Lifar), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (John Neumeier) and Paquita. Promoted to ‘Premier danseur’ in 1991, he was chosen by for the roles of Mercutio and Romeo in his Romeo and Juliet. He also danced Le Beau Gosse in Train Bleu (Nijinska), Vaslaw (Neumeier), Etudes (Lander) and La Bayadère (Nureyev). In 1993 offered him Le Jeune Homme et la Mort and Les Forains, and Mats Ek made him Albrecht in his Giselle. Following his first performance of Albrecht, he was promoted to ‘Etoile’ (Principal).

Since then, he has performed, amongst others: Paquita, Swan Lake (Bourmeister and Nureyev), Le Palais de Cristal, Symphonie en ut, The Four Temperaments, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, Apollon musagète, Le Fils Prodigue (George Balanchine), Till Eulenspiegel (), Jardin aux Lilas (Antony Tudor), In the Night, En Sol, Dances at a Gathering, A Suite of Dances, Afternoon of a Faun (Jerome Robbins), L’Arlésienne, Notre-Dame de Paris (Roland Petit), Le Chant de la Terre, L’Histoire de Manon (Kenneth MacMillan), Casse-Noisette, Magnificat (Neumeier), Sinfonietta (Jiří Kylián), In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated (William Forsythe), The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadère, Don Quixote and Cinderella (Nureyev), Le Spectre de la Rose (Mikhail Fokine), The Firebird and Boléro (Maurice Béjart) and Ivan le Terrible (Iouri Grigorovitch).

In 2003 he choreographed his first work, RVB 21 (Rouge, Vert, Bleu, 21 minutes), a piece for 12 dancers of the Centre Chorégraphique National – Ballet de Lorraine. In 2005 he created Caligular for Paris Opera Ballet, and in 2008 he presented Echo, a show mixing dance, music, painting and photography at the Amphitheatre Bastille.

Nicolas received the Benois de la Danse prize at the in 2005 and the Nijinsky award in Monte- Carlo in 2004. He is Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres and in l’Ordre national du Mérite. Outside of Paris Opera Ballet, he has been invited to dance with the Bolshoi, National Ballet of Finland, Ballet de Marseille (world premiere of The Leopard by Roland Petit in 1994), The Royal Ballet (Marguerite and Armand by Frederick Ashton), New York City Ballet (A Suite of Dances), the Kirov (La Bayadère, Le Fils Prodigue) and in Japan.

Massimo Murru Dancer (Rearray)

Massimo Murru began studying dance at the La Scala Ballet School, from where he graduated in 1990. He became a member of the Corps de ballet in the same year. In 1994 he was named First Ballet Dancer after his first performance as protagonist in Kenneth MacMillan's L'Histoire de Manon. Since then he has danced leading roles in classic productions such as The Nutcracker (Nureyev, Poliakov, Hynd); Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella (Nureyev); Giselle (Bart, Ruanne, Guillem, Ek); La Sylphide (Peter Schaufuss); La Bayadère (Natalia Makarova); Etudes (Harold Lander); Romeo and Juliet (Kenneth MacMillan).

He has furthermore been the protagonist of Ronald Hynd’s The Merry Widow with Carla Fracci and Susan Jaffe; The Red and the Black (Uwe Scholz); The Taming of the Shrew (John Cranko); Winter Dream (Kenneth MacMillan); Marguerite and Armand, A Month in the Country, and Ondine (Ashton); Agon, Apollo, The Four Temperaments, and A Midsummer Night's Dream (George Balanchine).

He became one of the favourite dancers of Roland Petit who chose him to perform in many of his ballets: Carmen, The Bat with Alessandra Ferri, Proust, Notre-Dame de Paris which made him the first Italian guest étoile to dance at the Paris Opera. Petit created many works for Massimo Murru: Chéri with Carla Fracci, revived later with Dominique Kalfouni and Altinai Assiylmuratova, Bolero to music by Ravel, Swan Lake and its Evil Spells, and the solo The Dead Leaves. Mats Ek entrusted him with the role of Albrecht in Giselle and with that of Don José, for the debut of his Carmen with Sylvie Guillem in the repertoire of the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden.

At La Scala he danced the leading role in John Neumeier's Daphnis and Chloe and in William Forsythe's Quartet. Besides at La Scala in Milan and other important Italian theatres, Massimo Murru has danced leading roles in Buenos Aires, Sydney, Melbourne, New York, Los Angeles, London, Berlin, Paris, and Mexico City. He is especially appreciated by Japanese audiences who have been able to see him perform many times over the years at the World Ballet Festival and in productions with Alessandra Ferri and Sylvie Guillem. In December 2003 he became Etoile of the Teatro alla Scala.

In March 2004 he was invited to the 4th International Ballet Festival to dance The Sleeping Beauty at the Marinsky-Kirov Theatre.

[Please confirm which two of the following 27’52” dancers will appear in your programme] Kenta Kojiri Dancer (27’52”)

Kenta Kojiri started dancing in Chiba/Japan at the age of three, and began his professional career after receiving the Apprentice Scholarship at the Prix de Lausanne in 1999. This achievement also included an invitation to join Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo.

Because of his interest in the Kylián style, he joined Nederlands Dans Theater 2 in 2003 and Nederlands Dans Theater 1 three years later. His last season at Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) also marked Jiří Kylián`s last as resident choreographer, during which Kenta danced in Kylián`s final creation for NDT, Mémoires d’Oubliettes.

Currently, Kenta is working as a freelance dancer and choreographer on the international stage, and continues to share his knowledge with the artists of Japan.

Aurélie Cayla Dancer (27’52”) Aurélie Cayla was born in 1980 in Paris, France. She studied at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique et de Danse in Lyon, France from 1996-1999. From 1999 to 2002, she danced with Aalto Ballett Theater in Essen, Germany.

She then joined Nederlands Dans Theater 2 from 2002-2005 where she created and danced for many choreographers such as Johan Inger, Ohad Naharin, Hans van Manen, Paul Lightfoot/ Sol Leon and Jirí Kylián. In 2005, Aurélie was invited to join NDT 1, the main company, where she danced in all performances in Holland and on tour until July 2010. She performed works by Hans Van Manen, William Forsythe, Mats Ek, and created works by Crystal Pite, Paul Lightfoot/Sol Leon, Wayne McGregor and Tero Saarinen.

She was also influential in Jiri Kylian’s creations of Sleepless (2005), Tar and Feathers (2006), Vanishing Twins (2008) and Memoires d’Oubliettes (2009). Presently, Aurélie is dancing as a freelance artist and stages works by Jirí Kylián.

Aurélie is also part of the group OFF Projects, created in 2012 around dance works and installations of Israeli choreographer-musician Amos Ben Tal, as dancer and group coordinator, since she graduated in Cultural Mediation-Art Management in September 2012.

Nataša Novotná Dancer (27’52”) Nataša completed her dance education at the Janáček Conservatory in Ostrava, Czech Republic. She later joined Nederlands Dans Theater and NDT 2 under the leadership of Jiří Kylián. In 2000 she joined the Gothenburg Ballet in Sweden, where she received the prize/scholarship for young talent. After two seasons in Scandinavia she returned to join the main company of Nederlands Dans Theater, NDT1. During this time, Dutch critics granted her with two nominations for best dance interpretation. She also organised the NDT Choreographic Workshop Performance (2003–2006) which focused on fundraising.

Since the summer of 2006, Nataša has worked as a freelance dancer, performing and participating in productions worldwide. She collaborated with the Korzo Theater, C-Scope and Station Zuid in the Netherlands, Roberto Bolle and Friends in Italy, and the International Summer Ballet in Copenhagen, Denmark, among others. On occasion, she sets choreographies by Jiří Kylián for other companies.

Together with Václav Kuneš, Nataša founded 420PEOPLE, a contemporary dance company based in Prague, Czech Republic. For an outstanding female performance she received the prestigious Czech Thalia prize, followed by the dancer of the year award. Recently, she created her own solo work, Sacrebleu, and Stravinsky’s Firebird for the National Ballet in Brno, Czech Republic.

Nataša has had the opportunity to work and create with choreographers such as Jiří Kylián, Ohad Naharin, William Forsythe, Mats Ek, Tero Saarinen, Paul Lightfoot, Saburo Teshigawara, Crystal Pite, Johan Inger and many others.

Václav Kuneš Dancer (27’52”) After finishing at the Dance Conservatory in Prague in 1993, Václav joined the younger company of Nederlands Dans Theater, NDT2. In 1998 he joined the main group, NDT 1, under the direction of Jiří Kylián, where he remained until 2004. During his years with NDT he worked with many choreographers including Jiří Kylián, Ohad Naharin, William Forsythe, Paul Lightfoot, Mats Ek, Nacho Duato, Johan Inger, Andre Gingras, Hans van Manen and many others. With NDT 1, he performed in numerous countries in Europe, Asia, North and South America, Africa and Australia.

In 2004 Václav decided to continue as a freelance dancer and choreographer. As a dancer he has worked with Saburo Teshigawara, with whom he created several pieces for the New National Theater in Tokyo in 2005 and 2006. Václav was nominated for dancer of the year in 2005 in Cannes, France, and he is frequently invited to perform at various gala performances in Europe (Roberto Bolle and Friends), USA and Japan.

Václav is currently performing in a creation by Jiří Kylián and Michael Schumacher entitled Last Touch First, a Holland Dance Festival/NDT production. For the Finnish Film Foundation, he played and danced the role of the young Nijinsky in the film, My madness is my love – Impressions of Vaslav Nijinsky.

Since 2004 he has worked as an assistant to Jiří Kylián, setting his works on companies such as Basel Ballet, Finnish National Ballet, Czech National Ballet, Poland National Ballet, Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf, Ballet of La Scala in Milano and many others. As a choreographer, Václav has created several works for NDT2, Copenhagen International Ballet, Laterna Magica company in Prague, the Korzo Theater in The Hague (Dutch national tour, 2008) and for the Station Zuid production house in Holland (Dutch national tour in 2009 with his full-length piece, Ghost Note). In 2010 he created a new work for l’Opéra National de Bordeaux, Temporary Condition. His work, Small Hour, has been staged for the Dominic Walsh Dance Theater in Houston, Texas, and with the Skanes Dansteater in Malmö, Sweden.

In 2007 he co-founded the contemporary dance group 420PEOPLE in Prague, his hometown, of which he is artistic director. His first creation for the group, Small Hour, has gained several nominations and in 2008 he received an award from the Theater Institute of the Czech Republic. His second creation for 420PEOPLE, Golden Crock, received a nomination for the most prestigious award given in the Czech Republic to a choreographer, the Sazka award. As a co-production of 420PEOPLE and the Dutch Korzo Theater, he created a full evening piece, A Small hour ago, which premiered at the Holland Dance Festival in The Hague in November 2009 (on tour in the Netherlands in 2011). The most recent work for his company, REEN, premiered in November 2010. The company has been invited to perform in France, Spain and Poland, and more recently in South Korea and the US.

Lukas Timulak Dancer (27’52”) After studying at Dance Conservatory in Bratislava (Slovakia) and Academie de Danse Classique Princesse Grace in Monaco in 1997, Lukas joined Les Ballets de Monte Carlo where he danced for three years. In 2000 he joined Nederlands Dans Theater 2 and two years later Nederlands Dans Theater 1, where he worked until 2010. As part of NDT he had the chance to work on new creations and existing works from choreographers such as Jirˇí Kylián, Wiliam Forsythe, Mats Ek, Paul Lightfoot/Sol Leon, Hans van Manen, Ohad Naharin, Crystal Pite, Johan Inger and Wayne McGregor, among others.

Lukas started to choreograph during his years in NDT. Since 2001 he has regularly made short pieces for NDT choreographic workshops. For C-Scope in Regentes Theater in The Hague he created Dear Reader (2004), Due a Due (2005) and Bodily Writing (2007). For NDT 1 he made Twenty (2005) and I SAW I WAS I (2006), as part of the UpComing Choreographers project. For NDT 2 he made Oneness (2007), Offspring (2009) and Masculine/Feminine (2011). As a choreographer he has been working with companies including Slovak National Theater, Nationaltheater Mannheim, Gothenburg Ballet, Konpainia Dantzaz, Balé da Cidade de São Paulo in Brazil and Korzo Productions in The Hague. Most of his works since 2004 have been in collaboration with designer Peter Bilak, concerning new concepts for contemporary dance.

David Morrow Composer (Rearray)

David was born in Rhode Island, USA in 1952. He graduated, in 1976, from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. From 1979 until 1987 he worked as a free-lance musician in New York City. During this time, he was engaged at New York University, the Martha Graham School, and the Alvin Ailey School. Since 1990, he has been a resident of Frankfurt am Main.

David Morrow began working with choreographer William Forsythe in 1989. He has appeared as pianist, speaker, performer and composer. His most recent compositions for Mr. Forsythe include Yes We Can’t (Barcelona: 2010) (a perpetually devolving work), Rearray (London: 2011) and Study #2 (Dresden: 2012).

In 2001, he composed his first piece for William Forsythe and Ballet Frankfurt: Woolf Phrase II, Decreation and Ricercar followed soon thereafter. With The Forsythe Company (starting in 2005), he has composed the music for Three Atmospheric Studies (Part I), Clouds after Cranach (Part II), and Fivefold.

Other collaborations within Germany (and Europe) began with his 2 hour piece for violin and piano, Where the mountain crosses... (1998), with violinist Ian van Rensburg and choreographer Stéphane Fléchet. This music subsequently evolved into the piece Bergwelten (Mountain Worlds) which was performed in Lucerne (2006) with choreography from Verena Weiss. Further collaborations followed through 2010. Similarly, during this same time-period, came three pieces with Chinese choreographer Xin-Peng Wang (in Dortmund).

David’s most recent collaborator is Argentine choreographer, Paula Rosolen. Die Farce der Suche premiered in Frankfurt (2010) with David as performer- pianist. Libretto appeared in Hamburg (2012) with David additionally as composer- arranger. This will premiere in a Frankfurt version in May. Also, Piano Men, a new piece, will be premiering in October of this year.

9. Optional Approved Biographies (short versions)

Jiří Kylián [206 words] Jiří Kylián (Czechoslovakia, 1947) started his dance career at the age of nine, at the School of the National Ballet in Prague. He left Prague when he received a scholarship for the Royal Ballet School in London in 1967. After this, he left to join the Stuttgart Ballett led by John Cranko. Kylián made his debut as a choreographer here with Paradox for the Noverre Gesellschaft. After having made three ballets for Nederlands Dans Theater (Viewers, Stoolgame and La Cathédrale Engloutie), he became artistic director of the company in 1975. In 1978 he put Nederlands Dans Theater on the international map with Sinfonietta. That same year, together with Carel Birnie, he founded Nederlands Dans Theater II, which was meant to function as a breeding ground for young talent. He also initiated Nederlands Dans Theater III in 1991, the company for older dancers, above forty years of age. This three dimensional structure was unique in the world of dance. After an extraordinary record of service, Kylián handed over the artistic leadership in 1999, but remained associated to the dance company as house choreographer until December 2009. Jiří Kylián has created nearly 100 works of which many are performed by ballet companies and schools all over the world.

Jiří Kylián [469 words] Jiří Kylián (Czechoslovakia, 1947) started his dance career at the age of nine, at the School of the National Ballet in Prague. In 1962 he was accepted as a student at the Prague Conservatory. He left Prague when he received a scholarship for the Royal Ballet School in London in 1967. After this, he left to join the Stuttgart Ballett led by John Cranko. Kylián made his debut as a choreographer here with Paradox for the Noverre Gesellschaft. After having made three ballets for Nederlands Dans Theater (Viewers, Stoolgame and La Cathédrale Engloutie), he became artistic director of the company in 1975. In 1978 he put Nederlands Dans Theater on the international map with Sinfonietta. That same year, together with Carel Birnie, he founded Nederlands Dans Theater II, which served as a bridge between school and professional company life and was meant to give young dancers the opportunity to develop their skills and talents and to function as a breeding ground for young talent. He also initiated Nederlands Dans Theater III in 1991, the company for older dancers, above forty years of age. This three dimensional structure was unique in the world of dance. After an extraordinary record of service, Kylián handed over the artistic leadership in 1999, but remained associated to the dance company as house choreographer until December 2009. Jiří Kylián has created nearly 100 works of which many are performed all over the world. Kylián has not only made works for Nederlands Dans Theater, but also for the Stuttgart Ballet, the Paris Opéra Ballet, Bayerisches Staatsoper Münich, Swedish television and the Tokyo Ballet.

Kylián has worked with many creative personalities of international stature – composers: Arne Nordheim (”Ariadne” 1997), Toru Takemitsu (”Dream Time” 1983) - designers: Walter Nobbe (”Sinfonietta” 1978), Bill Katz (”Symphony of Psalms” 1978), John Macfarlane (“Forgotten Land” 1980), Michael Simon (”Stepping Stones” 1991), Atsushi Kitagawara (”One of a Kind” 1998), Susumu Shingu (”Toss of a Dice” 2005), Yoshiki Hishinuma (‘’Zugvögel’’ 2009).

In the summer of 2006, together with Film Art Director, Boris Paval Conen, he created the film CARMEN. It was choreographed “on location" on the surface brown coal mines of the Czech Republic. In 2010, Kylián served as Mentor in Dance in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.

In the course of his career, Kylián received many international awards including: "Officer of the Orange Order"- Netherlands, "Honorary Doctorate" - Julliard School New York, three "Nijinsky Awards" - Monte Carlo (best choreographer, company and work), "Benoit de la Dance" - Moscow and Berlin, "Honorary Medal" of the President of the Czech Republic, "Commander of the Legion d'honneur" France, and in 2008 he was distinguished with one of the highest royal honors, the Medal of the Order of the House of Orange given to him by Her Majesty the Queen Beatrix from the Netherlands.

Mats Ek [254 words] Mats Ek was born in 1945, and began a short period of dance studies in 1962 with Donya Feuer in Stockholm. In addition, he later took theatre studies in Norrköping. From 1966 to 1973 he worked as stage director and assistant at the Royal Dramatic Theater of Sweden and the Marionette Theatre in Stockholm. In 1972 he re-established his contact with dance, and in 1973 began dancing with the Cullberg Ballet.

William Forsythe [60 words] William Forsythe is recognized as one of the world’s foremost choreographers. His work is acknowledged for reorienting the practice of ballet from its identification with classical repertoire to a dynamic 21st-century art form. Forsythe’s deep interest in the fundamental principles of organisation has led him to produce a wide range of projects including Installations, Films, and Web based knowledge creation.

William Forsythe [589 words] In 1974 - 5, he was a member of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Düsseldorf, then made his choreographic debut in 1976 with The Officer’s Servant, for the Cullberg Ballet, the first of many of his works formed on them. After leaving the Cullberg Ballet in 1993 he continued to be prolific in his choreography, producing such works as She was Black (1995), and the TV ballet Smoke (1995). He has also become a guest choreographer for the leading companies of the world working with, among many others, the Royal Swedish Opera, the Norwegian Opera, Stuttgart Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, La Scala, Milan, Metropolitan Opera, New York, and Paris Opéra Ballet. In 2008 he created Place, a pas de deux for Ana Laguna and Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Black Radish for the Royal Swedish Ballet. . Ek’s style has become distinctive for its imaginative interpretations of storylines, in combination with a lyrical approach which conveys through movement the underlying emotions and feelings rather than just the narrative detail. He has retained his interest in other forms of theatre, staging productions of plays and operas.

Raised in New York and initially trained in Florida with Nolan Dingman and Christa Long, Forsythe danced with the Joffrey Ballet and later the Stuttgart Ballet, where he was appointed Resident Choreographer in 1976. Over the next seven years, he created new works for the Stuttgart ensemble and ballet companies in Munich, The Hague, London, Basel, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Paris, New York, and San Francisco. In 1984, he began a 20-year tenure as director of the Ballet Frankfurt, where he created works such as Artifact (1984), Impressing the Czar (1988), Limb’s Theorem (1990), The Loss of Small Detail (1991, in collaboration with composer Thom Willems and designer Issey Miyake), A L I E / N A(C)TION (1992), Eidos:Telos (1995), Endless House (1999), Kammer/Kammer (2000), and Decreation (2003).

After the closure of the Ballet Frankfurt in 2004, Forsythe established a new, more independent ensemble. The Forsythe Company, founded with the support of the states of Saxony and Hesse, the cities of Dresden and Frankfurt am Main, and private sponsors, is based in Dresden and Frankfurt am Main and maintains an extensive international touring schedule. Works produced by the new ensemble include Three Atmospheric Studies (2005), You made me a monster (2005), Human Writes (2005), Heterotopia (2006), The Defenders (2007), Yes we can’t (2008), and I Don’t Believe in Outer Space (2008). Forsythe’s most recent works are developed and performed exclusively by The Forsythe Company, while his earlier pieces are prominently featured in the repertoire of virtually every major ballet company in the world, including The Kirov Ballet, The New York City Ballet, The San Francisco Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, England’s Royal Ballet, and The Paris Opera Ballet.

Awards received by Forsythe and his ensembles include the New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award (1988, 1998, 2004, 2007) and London’s Laurence Olivier Award (1992, 1999, 2009). Forsythe has been conveyed the title of Commandeur des Arts et Lettres (1999) by the government of France and has received the German Distinguished Service Cross (1997), the Wexner Prize (2002) and the Golden Lion (2010).

Forsythe has been commissioned to produce architectural and performance installations by architect-artist Daniel Libeskind, ARTANGEL (London), Creative Time (New York), and the City of Paris. His installation and film works have been presented in numerous museums and exhibitions, including the Whitney Biennial (New York), the Venice Biennale, the Louvre Museum, and 21_21 Design Sight in Tokyo. His performance, film, and installation works have been featured at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, the Venice Biennale and the Hayward Gallery, London.

In collaboration with media specialists and educators, Forsythe has developed new approaches to dance documentation, research, and education. His 1994 computer application Improvisation Technologies: A Tool for the Analytical Dance Eye, developed with the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, is used as a teaching tool by professional companies, dance conservatories, universities, postgraduate architecture programs, and secondary schools worldwide. 2009 marks the launch of Synchronous Objects for One Flat Thing, reproduced, a digital online score developed with The Ohio State University that reveals the organizational principles of the choreography and demonstrates their possible application within other disciplines. As an educator, Forsythe is regularly invited to lecture and give workshops at universities and cultural institutions. In 2002, Forsythe was chosen as one the founding Dance Mentor for The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. Forsythe is an Honorary Fellow at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance in London and holds an Honorary Doctorate from the Juilliard School in New York.