Archives: Personal Portraits

Gabriel Smeets (NL) is the artistic director of Cullberg since May 2014, leading the company together with managing director Stina Dahlström, who joined in October 2016. Gabriel Smeets will leave the position in December 2021, the recruitment process for a successor ends August, 9, 2021. Read more.

Gabriel Smeets was born in The Netherlands 1958. He has a background in visual arts, arts journalism, and communication, as well as a dramaturge. He is active as a mentor and curator of panels and symposiums in the field of dance, and he has held the position as interim chief curator of the festival programming at the Springdance Festival in Utrecht.

Before coming to Cullberg, Gabriel Smeets was the artistic director of the SNDO, the School for New Dance Development under the umbrella of The Amsterdam School of the Arts/Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, 2006-2014. On this position, Gabriel Smeet transformed the school in a 4 years-program for choreography and managed to provide the SNDO with a strong position in the international field of performing arts education. Alumni from the SNDO have presented their works in the international performing arts festivals and venues.

From 2000 until 2006 he was the dance editor for the Dutch monthly magazine TM (Theatermaker). As a dramaturge he has created works with the Dutch theatre company Paralyse D’Amour, choreographer Krisztina de Chatel, visual artist Marina Abramovic, fashion designer Aziz Bekkaoui and director/choreographer Ibrahim Quraishi.

In 2006 he developed, in close collaboration with co-mentor Ibrahim Quraishi, a 10 weeks educational model called The Political Body at DasArts, the Amsterdam School for Advanced Research on Theater & Dance. Smeets is also the co-author of Why all these questions? published in 2003 (Theatre Institute of the Netherlands) a book he created in close collaboration with Simon Dove.

In 2004, Smeets developed and produced with Dansgroep Krisztina de Chatel a symposium called How Much Body Does Dance Need? for the Amsterdam forum De Balie. In 2005 Gabriel Smeets received the Dutch Foundation for the Performing Arts Award as a fellow with the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University in New York. As a curator he developed a series of panels on the state of contemporary dance called Dance Unwrapped for The Dance Theater Workshop (DTW) in New York in 2006.

In July 2006, Smeets was the mentor for the Spring Dance Dialogue in Moscow between choreographers from New York, Moscow and Amsterdam, and during 2009 and 2011 Smeets was invited by choreographer Germaine Acogny to teach at her Ecole des Sables in Senegal workshops on concept development. Here he worked with 24 young choreographers from all over Africa.

Born 1993 in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Darío Barreto Damas started dancing at Espacio Cultural Victoria, Tenerife.  For two years he studied the Grado Superior de Danza, Coreografía e Interpretación, at Institut del Teatre, Barcelona, directed by Alexis Eupierre. In 2014, Darío started his studies at DOCH, University of Dance and Circus in Stockholm, under the Bachelor of Dance and Performance, directed by Anna Grip and Kristine Slettevold.

Darío started as an apprentice at Cullbergbaletten in 2015 and has since then worked with Cullbergbaletten on different projects. He has been part of the creation and production of Figure a sea by Deborah Hay and Protagonist by Jefta Van Dinther. Darío has also performed in 11th floor by Edouard Lock and he is a part of the project Entities, theatre of gestures by Mirko Guido. Darío has worked by the side of Cristina Caprioli with the production A Line_up. In the summer of 2017 Darío was granted the DanceWEB Scholarship.

Since 2014 Darío is making his own work. His last one plays around fantasy, illusion, a licking shiny glitter-ish ego, utopian-dreamy spaces and meaning transformation. Darío is at the moment focusing on co-authorship works together with Aleksandar Georgiev and Zhana Pencheva. His co-authorship works have been supported by La Caldera, Barcelona and ICI-CCN Montpellier in residency programs.

Núria Guiu Sagarra  is from Barcelona, Spain and graduated at the Institut del Teatre where she also worked with IT Dansa young company. After that she has been working as a freelancer with projects and companies such as Gisèle Vienne, Carte Blanche Dance Company, Kamuyot (Batsheva Dance Company/Riksteatern Sweden), Jasmin Vardimon, La Veronal, Kobalt Works, Ingri Fiksdal among others. She is interested in choreography and has created pieces such as La Muda, a short piece that premiered at the Oslo Opera as a commission work for Carte Blanche Dance Company and PORTAL, a solo work that premiered at the Oktoberdans Festival in Bergen and later at Sala Hiroshima in Barcelona. LIKES, is her latest solo work which is part of the platform Aerowaves 2018. Núria has also worked as a choreographer assistant/collaborator with Arco Renz (Kobalt Works) during 4 years in projects developed in Asian countries such as Cambodia, The Philippines, Vietnam, Korea and as an assistant for Gisele Vienne’s latest work Crowd. Now days she is studying a graduate in Anthropology and a Yoga iyengar teacher’s training.

Eliott Marmouset (he/they) was born in 1994 in Fontainebleau, France. He is educated in Applied Art and Design Product in Paris as well as Dancer maker Bachelor in ArtEZ Arnhem Netherlands. Eliott joined Cullberg first as an apprentice in 2017 and returned as a professional from season 2019/2020. Aside of the company work he has collaborated with his sister Fanny Marmouset, Albert Quesada/Mercat de les Flors and La Fura dels Baus. Eliott also nurtures a practice of craft and painting that revolves around the notion of body(ies) and is excited to see how his different interests will dialogue together in the future.

Growing up in Bristol, Georges began his training at the Swindon Youth Dance Academy, Centre for Advanced Training. He moved to London to continue his training at The Rambert School, graduating with a First Class BA (Hons) degree. As a dance artist Georges performed in Punchdrunk’s immersive production of The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable and has toured internationally with James Cousins Company performing Cousins’ iconic duet There We Have Been, Without Stars and ROSALIND. Georges toured SAFE with ZoieLogic Dance Theatre and has most recently been working for Alexander Whitley Dance Company on his new creations 8 Minutes and Between Two Fires and has toured internationally with Pattern Recognition. In 2013, Georges was a finalist in the prestigious New Adventures Choreographer Award and has more recently taught creative workshops on the BalletBoyz Dancer’s Course. Georges is thrilled to have joined Cullbergbaletten to perform Mattias Andersson’s new creation of The Mental States of Sweden in Dance and to join the tour of Jefta van Dinther’s, Protagonist and Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir’s, HYPER.

Ludvig Daae, born 1987, is a Norwegian choreographer and dancer, educated at The Royal Swedish Ballet School and at P.A.R.T.S, Brussels. He has worked with choreographers such as Deborah Hay (US) and Mårten Spångberg (SE), and his own productions have been presented across Europe. Ludvig is currently touring two of his own shows; HYPERFRUIT, a dance and film collaboration with film director and visual artist Joanna Nordahl, and his latest performance Dance To Dance To that premiered in February 2017 at MDT in Stockholm and on which tonight’s piece for Cullbergbaletten is based. In December 2015, Ludvig celebrated 100 shows in 10 different countries of his solo performance MM in Sophiensaele in Berlin. MM was named top 10 stage performances in Portugal in 2014, and earned Ludvig the title of one of the “young hopes for European dance” by German dance magazine Tanz.

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992 Suelem de Oliveira da Silva started her dance education at the Deborah Colker Movement Center and later got accepted to P.A.R.T.S in Belgium. She started at Cullberg in 2017 and has since danced in pieces like, Protagonist by Jefta van Dinther , The Mental States of Sweden in Dance by Mattias Andersson, Figure a Sea by Deborah Hay, NEAR by Eleanor Bauer, The Match by Deborah Hay and the solo work On Earth I’m Done: Mountains, choreographed by Jefta van Dinther which was also adapted into a shorter version for SVT; Mountains: The Hunter.

Director Melanie Mederlind, born 1972, graduated from the Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts’ director’s course in 2004. The Strindberg Project for the Cullberg Ballet sees her creating a work for dancers for the first time. She started working at Riksteatern in 2004 where she directed five productions, the most recent being Innocence by Dea Loher. She has made a name for herself as a director of primarily German contemporary drama and has introduced several German dramatists to the Swedish stage. She directed Elfriede Jelinek’s Swedish premiere. She was nominated for a Hedda Award in 2008 for best direction for her production Ulrike Maria Stuart at the Norway’s National Theatre in Oslo. Her productions have been invited to festivals in Norway and Finland and most recently to the Swedish Theatre Biennial in 2011. Last spring she directed Saint Joan of the Stockyards by Bertolt Brecht at Folkteatern in Gothenburg, where she is currently artist in residence.

Crystal Pite is a Vancouver-based choreographer and artist. She is a trained dancer, but during her entire dance career she has also worked as a choreographer. In 1995, she was awarded—the youngest ever—the Clifford E. Lee Choreographic Award. After a dance career in her native Canada, she joined the Ballett Frankfurt in 1996 under the direction of William Forsythe, where she stayed for five years.  Through the years she has collaborated both as a dancer and co-creator in several of Forsythe’s works.

Pite has created choreographies for Nederlands Dans Theater 1, Ballett Frankfurt, Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal (where she was also the resident choreographer between the years 2001-2004), Ballet British Columbia, the Alberta Ballet, and Ballet Jorgen, among others, as well as for many free-lance groups.  She has also choreographed and performed in several films.

In the year 2001 Pite returned to Canada where she founded her own company – Kidd Pivot.  She is still active as a dancer, and performs herself in the works she choreographs for her company. Kidd Pivot, which has already received numerous prizes, tours both nationally and internationally.  Pite is also active as an artist and musician.

In spring 2008, Crystal Pite created Matter of a Maker directly for Cullberg Ballet. In November 2009, for the first time ever, the company made an entrance at the small stage at Dansens Hus with Pite’s acclaimed work xspectacle which later on was performed at the main stage.

Johan Inger was born in Stockholm and educated at the Royal Swedish Ballet School and at the National Ballet School in Canada. In 1985 Johan Inger joined the Royal Swedish Ballet, where he in 1989 became a soloist. In 1990 he joined the Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) in Holland.

Johan Inger’s official breakthrough as a choreographer came with Mellantid (Swedish for In Between Time) – his first work for NDT II – as part of the 1995 Holland Dance Festival. This work was crowned with the 1996 Philip Morris Finest Selection Award in the category of Contemporary Dance. Mellantid has been followed by several creations for NDT I, NDT II and NDT III.

In 2001 Johan Inger’s Mellantid was nominated for the British Laurence Olivier Award as ‘Best New Dance Production’. In October 2001 he received the Lucas Hoving Production Award for his works Dream Play and Walking Mad. In 2005 Walking Mad and Cullberg Ballet received Danza & Danza’s award for best performance in 2004. In 2006 Johan Inger received the Birgit Cullberg scholarship.

Johan Inger left the artistic directorship of Cullberg Ballet in the summer of 2008 to continue as a freelance choreographer. He lives in Sevilla, Spain, and is currently resident choreographer for NDT.

Hanna Hedman studied at the Royal Swedish Ballet School in Stockholm. She holds a diploma as a Somatic mouvement educator from the body mind centering school. Since 1996 she lives in France. As a choreographer she made the piece California Roll in collaboration with Isabelle Schad and good work productions. The work premiered in the festival Tanz im August in Berlin and has toured internationally. She has been working as a dancer, performer and assistant or outside eye with various artists such as Alain Buffard, Philippe Blanchard, Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Olga de Soto, Isabelle Schad, Fabrice Lambert and many others. She has collaborated with Benoît Lachambre for over 10 years and High heels too is the second time they work with the Cullberg Ballet.

Alexandra Bertaut was born 1973 in Paris and livet and works in Paris and other places. She in an explorer who sees the body as a subject, not a pretext. Alexandra Bertaut works with defining and shaping spaces and relations between for example identity – individuality, multifaceted – social being. She started out with studies in art, fashion and design and has since continued her research with Carlotta och Caterina Sagna, Edmond Russo och Shlomi Tuizer, Frank Micheletti, Fabrice Lambert, Maud Le Pladec, Herman Diephuis, Thomas Quillardet, Richard Siegal, Su-feh Lee and Benoît Lachambre.

Interview with Alexandra Bertaut

• What inspires you?
Everything! Spaces around… History and stories through… Everything… I only have to open my eyes, my ears, my mind and body (smile). Everything acts on my explorations… I look upon my work as a “living” research, near an anthropological exploration.

• How did you get the idea for the träskor?
It’s a combination of several things. At the beginning of the project with Cullberg Ballet, Benoît (choreographer) just said to me that he would like to work with high heels, very (very) high heeled shoes. A work around the balance and what this balance generates in/on the body. It’s very interesting to investigate this object of desire. I developed some work-platforms made in wood to begin the research. Some wooden shoes roughly strapped in feet, similar to torture artefacts. What high heels are in a way. That refers to all the pictures of this “feminin” torture and its intricate and strange beauty as well. Like points to dance… I had to find a name, a new appellation to name this singular collection… playing with words and meanings… and also the place where they were “born”… “Träskor” in Swedish means “clogs”, “wooden shoes” like “hooves”… or shoes with wooden soles… And I love the sound that makes also… “t r ä s k o r”… It was perfect.

• What does the hair-gear express?
In French it would be “parures de cheveux” – translated as “hair-gear”. In the same way it’s a research on “feminin attributes”: long hair. Like a seduction object and a beautiful and an hypnotic impediment as well. Some “wigs” but also a “dress”, a “skirt”, and a “mask” are made of “hair”, the same fabric as the installation. Like fineries, the “hair” make up a kind of new set or “gear” of outfits. An inherent finery, like an extension of the body, that, inevitably, generate its own motions.

• What was the inspiration for the full body suits?
Gender exploration. Individution. And living organisms… All my work is a research on the relationships between the body and outfits – costumes as well. The cultural implications of the costumes. How outfits act on the body , generate movements, influence movement. And contribute to the perception of the body as well. From the full-body costume wearers to the viewers. Inside and outside feelings. Limits perceptions… I could also tell you a story about Quetzal, a beautiful bird with magnificent colors on feathers…

• In what way do the set design, the music, the lights and the costume collaborate in High heels too?
All these elements make up a whole. Like an interaction between all of them.

• What has been special working with Cullberg Ballet?
More than special! It was just great to research with the Cullberg Ballet! The performers are so great!

• What is your dream project for the future?
Live in the present…beyond my wildest dreams! (smile)

Visual artist Laurent Goldring was born in Paris in 1957 and lives, sculpts, draws and makes videos in Paris. He studied philosophy before photography, video and media art. Since 1995, his work has focused on the representation of the body, and a questioning of the domination of the analogue image (photo, film, video) by revealing how limiting it can be. His approach has been of great interest to a number of choreographers, whose process follows the same questioning. He is currently working on spaces, according to the main idea that “space is an organ.” This idea led to the recent pieces co-choreographed with Saskia Hölbling and Isabelle Schad. The installation made for Benoît Lachambre in High heels too is directly linked with this process, as well as his most recent films.

Composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Hahn Rowe has worked with Hugo Largo, David Byrne, Antony and the Johnsons, Glenn Branca, Swans, R.E.M., Moby, and Foetus, among many others. He is a three time NY Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) recipient and his long-standing collaboration with Berlin/Brussels based choreographer Meg Stuart (Damaged Goods) has resulted in the creation of eight evening length dance/theater works. Also active as a composer for film and television, Hahn Rowe has created scores for films such as Clean, Shaven by Lodge Kerrigan, Spring Forward by Tom Gilroy, Married in America by Michael Apted and Sing Your Song by Susanne Rostock.

Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir was born and raised in Iceland. She studied dance at the Artez University of Arts in Arnhem and Amsterdam. Along side working as a performer with various artists in Europe, Margrét Sara co-founded the production house Panic Productions in Iceland, with dancer and choreographer Sveinbjörg Þórhallsdóttir, which was active from 2004 – 2009, and focused on producing and initiating collaborative performance works with international artists.

Margrét Sara has toured internationally with her own work since 2010 and currently lives and works in Berlin. Displaying the politics of intimacy is a core theme within her choreographic work while working with and exploring pathologies of the social political body within our own bodies. Margrét Sara has collaborated with a consistent team of performers over the last five years and the soundscapes which accompany the works are exclusively created by and with Peter Rehberg (PITA),electronic composer and director of the record label Editions MEGO in Vienna.

In 2015 Margrét Sara became artist in residence with Cullbergbaletten, creating the second commissioned work HYPER for the company in 2017.

She teaches periodically at the Icelandic Dance company, dance department of the Art University of Iceland, BA dance program at DOCH in Stockholm, MA department of choreography in the Theater Academy of the Art University of Helsinki, Dansalliansen Stockholm, Dansehallerne Copenhagen, Kiezkieken- program of dance workshops for refugee women in Berlin.

Elias (SE) came to the public’s attention last spring with his song ‘Revolution’, which became a major success. He followed this up with another single, ‘Green Eyes’, and the EP ‘Warcry’. As a thirteen-year-old, Elias started singing with the Tensta Gospel Choir, where he began to develop his unique singing voice – which has since drawn comparisons with Sam Cooke, Anthony Hamilton and Sam Smith. One of Spotify’s ‘Spotlight Artists’ for 2016, he is set to release his debut album this spring, which includes collaborations with producers such as Paul Epworth (Adele, Coldplay), HYENA, John Hill (Florence + The Machine, Christina Perri) and Fraser T. Smith (Adele, Ellie Goulding). Elias names Otis Redding, Spooky Black, Patti Smith and Jeff Buckley as his major influences and sources of inspiration. Last year, his performances included an appearance on Norwegian-Swedish TV show ‘Skavlan’ together with a string section and a gospel choir, plus appearances at Way Out West and the Roskilde and Reeperbahn festivals.

“Revolution’ is about breaking up with something you don’t believe in and instead doing things the way you like. It’s not an angry song – more about how fantastic it can be to start over again,” says Elias about the song, which is included in ‘Protagonist’.