Damien Jalet

Choreographer: Sin

Damien Jalet is an independent Belgian and French choreographer and dancer whose work has been presented all over the world. He was the 2017 artistic director of the UK National Youth Dance Company, and is associate artist at the Theatre National de Bretagne (TNB).

Choreographic highlights include: Oliver Award winning Babel(words) co-choreographed with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui featuring sets by Antony Gormley, Les médusés, a choreographic installation for 30 performers in the Louvre in Paris; Yama for the Scottish Dance Theatre with set design by American artist Jim Hodges; Boléro which he directed together with Cherkaoui and performance artist Marina Abramović for the Paris Opera Ballet; Inked for British Kathak dancer Aakash Odedra; Obsidian Pieces for the Icelandic Dance Company in collaboration with Erna Ómarsdóttir (which won the Icelandic national Performing Art Award Grimman 2015 for best choreographer), Gravity Fatigue, conceptualised by fashion designer Hussein Chalayan at Sadler’s Wells in London and THR(O)UGH, for Hessisches Staatsballett, collaborating again with Jim Hodges, Austrian composer Christian Fennesz and designer Jean Paul Lespagnard, for which he was nominated for best choreographer at the German theater awards Der Faust and Skid for GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, a piece for 17 dancers entirely performed on a 10 square meter platform inclined at 34 degrees.

Jalet also collaborated on films including The Ferryman with director Gilles Delmas and sections of Suspiria directed by Luca Guadagnino and recently staged his first opera Pelléas et Mélisande together with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui with a set by Marina Abramović, costumes by Iris Van Herpen and videos by Marco Brambilla at the Antwerp opera.

Jalet has been entitled knight of the arts and letters by the French government in 2013.

Picture by Mats Bäcker