Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui To Leave Opera Ballet Vlaanderen at the End of the 2021-2022 Season

After seven years, artistic leader for dance and choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui will be making the move from Opera Ballet Vlaanderen to Le Grand Théâtre de Genève in Switzerland. From the summer of 2022, he will become the artistic director of the ballet company there.

In 2015, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui became artistic director of the ballet department of Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, just after the merger between Opera Vlaanderen and Royal Ballet of Flanders. Over the past seven years, he has contributed to an important artistic chapter in the history of the house, brought an original, new impetus to the ballet company and introduced a new generation of dancers and makers to the public.

From his first performance Fall (2015) - which was revived last week as a reopening production at Opera Antwerp - he has achieved a number of remarkable successes of his own, such as the dance performances Exhibition (2016), Memento Mori (2018) and the opera Pelléas et Mélisande (2018) which he co-directed with Damien Jalet in a staging by Marina Abramovic.

These are just a few productions that have had an impact far beyond our national borders. In addition, he has also invited guest choreographers to work with the company such as Benjamin Millepied, Crystal Pite, Andonis Foniadakis and Akram Khan as well as guest productions by Pina Bausch such as Café Müller (2017) or Le Sacre du Printemps next season.

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui will remain active at Opera Ballet Vlaanderen in the upcoming season. His dance performance Noetic is scheduled for the beginning of 2022 in the Stadsschouwburg in Antwerp and in Opera Ghent. After that season he will take up his duties in Geneva.

The work of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui will remain a permanent fixture in the repertoire of Opera Ballet Vlaanderen. His choreographies are part of the company's living and current heritage.

We say farewell to Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui with the utmost mutual feelings of respect and gratitude for what he has done for this company. Opera Ballet Vlaanderen therefore wishes Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui every success with his future projects.

Since last year artistic director Jan Vandenhouwe is responsible for the opera and ballet programme. From the 2022-2023 season he will regularly invite associated artists to work with the dancers of Opera Ballet Vlaanderen. We will tell more about this in the course of next season.

Jan Vandenhouwe: "When someone leaves our house for another institution, it is always with a mixture of pride and regret. Of course, our doors remain open. In the past few years, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui has made a very beautiful and important artistic journey with the dancers of this house and for that, we are very grateful to him. We will continue to cherish his oeuvre but also his spirit in this house and I look forward to his future work in his new home base."

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui: "I am extremely grateful to have had the privilege to be a member of the executive committee of Opera Ballet Vlaanderen during these fascinating years. I am leaving the house and look forward to new challenges, but I am certainly not completely gone: the connection with the dancers and the entire team at Opera Ballet Vlaanderen will always remain. I look forward with enthusiasm and admiration to the path that artistic director Jan Vandenhouwe is forging for Opera, Ballet and Vonk."

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