Dutch National Ballet

Dance

Biography

Over the past 50 years, Dutch National Ballet has evolved into one of the world’s foremost ballet companies. With a unique and wide repertoire, a tradition of innovation and over 80 dancers from all around the world, the company plays a leading role in Dutch cultural life and serves as a cultural ambassador for the Netherlands around the globe.

The company is regularly invited to perform at prestigious international venues and festivals around the world. Its repertoire is a mixture of the classical story ballets ballet, highlights of twentieth-century ballet and contemporary works from highly acclaimed choreographers like Hans van Manen, Krzysztof Pastor, David Dawson, Alexei Ratmansky, Wayne McGregor and Christopher Wheeldon.
In 2013 The New York Times ranked the company in the top five dance institutions in the world, and Süddeutsche Zeitung ranked the group in the top three in the world.
Full-length classical and romantic ballets are an integral part of the company’s repertoire. The Dutch National Ballet performs several of these productions a year in their home season, many of these being productions especially created for the company such as, Swan Lake (Rudi van Dantzig), The Sleeping Beauty (Peter Wright), Giselle (Rachel Beaujean and Ricardo Bustamante), Cinderella (Christopher Wheeldon), Nutcracker and Mouseking (Toer van Schayk and Wayne Eagling), Don Quixote (Alexei Ratmansky), and Coppelia (Ted Brandsen).

The Dutch National Ballet also brings its audiences highlights of twentieth-century ballet, from the repertoire of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, from the beginning of the century, to works by Sir Frederic Ashton, Jerome Robbins, William Forsythe, John Neumeier and other important choreographers from around the globe.

Extra emphasis is laid on the work of George Balanchine, with over 25 works by this twentieth-century innovator of academic dance in the repertoire of the Dutch National Ballet.
The Dutch National Ballet offers more than a cross-section of dance history. Ever since it came into existence, the Dutch National Ballet has made an important contribution to the emergence and development of young choreographic talent and thus to a contemporary Dutch style of choreography. Past Resident choreographers Hans van Manen, Rudi van Dantzig and Toer van Schayk all experienced their first great international successes with the Dutch National Ballet. Their abstract works are still frequently featured in the DNB reperotire especially the works of Hans van Manen, who is still today, the backbone of the Dutch National Ballet.
The Dutch National Ballet has also produced a new generation of choreographers including, artistic director Ted Brandsen, resident choreographer Krzysztof Pastor, associate artist David Dawson and Juanjo Arqués – all of whom are former Dutch National Ballet dancers.

The creations of these choreographers is performed by companies from Mariinsky Ballet to the Royal Ballet London, the Australian Ballet, Finnish National Ballet and many other international companies. Choreographers from Holland and from abroad are also regularly commissioned to create new works exclusively for the Dutch National Ballet. In recent year, the Dutch National Ballet has presented the works of highly acclaimed choreographers such as Christopher Wheeldon, Alexei Ratmansky, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Shen Wei, Wayne McGregor, Jorma Elo and Martin Schläpfer.

The Dutch National Ballet not only invests in talented choreographers, but also strongly believes that young talented dancers should be supported and challenged to achieve their full artistic potential. In 2013 the Dutch National Ballet – Junior Company was founded: a stepping-stone for young dancers to make the leap from the Dutch National Ballet Academy (the official school of the Dutch National Ballet) to the Dutch National Ballet.