Four Duets, For Dance, Four Dimensions, Fourth Dimension

4D. Four Duets, For Dance, Four Dimensions, Fourth Dimension: with a title that leaves itself open to a myriad of interpretations, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui serves us with duets that are both complete in themselves and glimpses of wider worlds. These are duets whose original versions were born in very diverse settings.

Faun was originally commissioned by Sadler’s Wells in London as part of its centennial offering to the great impresario, Sergei Diaghilev, the 2009 mixed bill ‘In the spirit of Diaghilev’ which also showcased work by Wayne McGregor, Russell Maliphant and Javier de Frutos.

Pure was commissioned by the Flemish dance festival Dansand and performed for the first time on the beaches of Ostend under July skies in 2010. This duet also featured in TeZukA, Cherkaoui's 2011 homage to Osamu Tezuka, founding father of modern manga

Sin grew out of Babel (words), which was choreographed together with Damien Jalet.

Matter in its initial avatar was a pivotal sequence in the 2008 piece Origine that premiered at the Bourlaschouwburg in Antwerp.

These four duets were revised, nurtured to realise their potential as freestanding works and brought together to form a full-fledged programme.

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s debut as a choreographer was in 1999 with Andrew Wale’s contemporary musical Anonymous Society. Since then, he has made more than 20 fully-fledged choreographic pieces and picked up a slew of prestigious awards.

In 2008, Sadler’s Wells named him as an Associate Artist, and since 2010 he has been artistic director of the Festival Equilibrio in Rome. He also has been appointed as the new artistic director of the Royal Ballet Flanders and will take up the post on 1 September 2015.

While Cherkaoui’s initial pieces ("Rien de Rien", "Foi", "Tempus Fugit") were made as a core member of the Belgian collective les ballets C de la B, he also made work that both expanded and consolidated his artist vision: "Ook" (2000) with Nienke Reehorst and the mentally disabled actors of Theater Stap, "D’avant" (2002) with Damien Jalet and dancer-singers of the Sasha Waltz & Guests company and zero degrees (2005) with Akram Khan. Between 2006-2009, during his stint as associate artist at Het Toneelhuis in Antwerp, he extended his exploration of the equations between self and otherness through "Sutra" (2008), his dialogue with the warrior monks of the Shaolin Temple and "Dunas" (2009) alongside flamenco bailaora, Maria Pagés, and "Play" (2010) with kutchipudi danseuse Shantala Shivalingappa.

In 2010, with the founding of his company Eastman (in residence at deSingel International Artcampus) in Antwerp, Cherkaoui began a new phase in his trajectory, marked by the multiple-award-winning Babel, co-choreographed with Damien Jalet and designed by Antony Gormley. "TeZukA" (2011) – his homage to Osamu Tezuka, the founding father of modern manga – and "Puz/zle" (2012) followed. 2013 saw the premiere of 4D and "生长genesis" (Eastman), "Boléro" (co-created with Damien Jalet and Marina Abramovic, for the Ballet of the Opera of Paris) and "M¡longa" (for Sadler’s Wells).

He continues to work with a variety of theatres, opera houses and ballet companies from the world (Dutch National Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, GöteborgsOperan Danskompani, Bunkamura Theatre Cocoon in Tokyo, Stuttgart Ballet. Los Angeles Dance Company). Cherkaoui also received much international acclaim for his choreography in Joe Wright’s feature film Anna Karenina (2012). Cherkaoui directed and choreographed Shell Shock (2014), an opera for La Monnaie (Brussels) with music by Nicholas Lens and text by Nick Cave.

In 2015, Cherkaoui directed his first full-length theatre production Pluto based on the award-winning manga series by Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki at Bunkamura in Tokyo, bringing 

the beloved manga character Astro Boy to life on stage, and was movement director for Lyndsey Turner's Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch at the Barbican Centre in London. He also made a trio Harbor Me, and choreographed a new Firebird for Stuttgart Ballet. In the same year, Cherkaoui created a new production Fractus V for his company Eastman, in which he also performs, and made his first work for the Royal Ballet of Flanders Fall. 

Cherkaoui assumed the role of artistic director at the Royal Ballet of Flanders in 2015. He is also associate artist at Sadler’s Wells, London, guest artistic director of the National Youth Dance Company, as well as dance director of Festival Equilibrio in Rome.

Source: Eastman⎜Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui

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