Alexander Ekman Choreographer

Biography

Alexander Ekman is an international choreographer/director creating pieces for theatres, opera houses and museums. He also directs films and creates live performances/events in pop up locations around the world. Ekman has created and collaborated with around 45 dance companies worldwide including the Royal Swedish Ballet, Cullberg Ballet, Compañia Nacional de Danza Goteborg Ballet, Iceland Dance Company, Bern Ballet, Cedar Lake Contemporary Dance, Ballet de l’Opéra du Rhin, The Norwegian National Ballet, Boston Ballet, Royal Ballet of Flanders, Sydney Dance Company, The Royal Ballet of Denmark and Vienna Ballet. He has also created for festivals the French Europa Danse and the Athens International Dance Festival.
In 2005, at the International Choreography Competition of Hannover, Ekman was awarded first prize by the critics, and won second prize with Swingle Sisters (one of the ballets from his Sisters trilogy). During 2011 Ekman also worked as a teacher/choreographer at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York City. Ekman’s 2010 work Cacti has become a worldwide hit and has been performed by 15 dance companies including Sydney Dance Company. The work was nominated for the Dutch Zwaan dance prize in 2010, the National Dance Award (UK) in 2012, and also for the prestigious British Olivier Award. In 2009 Ekman created the dance film 40 Meters Under for and with Cullberg Ballet, which was broadcasted on national Swedish television. That autumn he collaborated with the renowned Swedish choreographer Mats Ek on video projections for Ek’s play Håll Plats. Ekman also created an installation for the Modern Museum in Stockholm with dancers of Cullberg Ballet.
In 2012 he collaborated with Alicia Keys and incorporated her into his work Tuplet. In 2014 Ekman created his own version of Swan Lake, a new take on the most famous ballet of them all. A Swan Lake received enormous attention worldwide and returned to the Oslo Opera House in 2016. Ekman filled the stage with 6,000 litres of water creating a real lake on stage. A Swan Lake is available on DVD and the documentary Rare Birds by TM Rives shows the process of how it became possible to create a lake inside an opera house. In 2015 Ekman created his own version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Royal Swedish Ballet. In September of that year he received the Swedish Medea Award for “Inventor and renewer”. In 2016, he received the German theatre award “Der Faust” for his ballet COW for the Semperoper Ballet.

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