Richard Wherlock

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Richard Wherlock (born on August 21, 1958 in Bristol ) is a British dancer and choreographer . He has directed the Basel Ballet since 2001 .

life and work

Wherlock studied dance at the Ballet Rambert School and was eventually hired as a dancer at the Ballet Rambert . In 1981 he was hired by Jochen Ulrich as a solo dancer at the Kölner Tanzforum . There he worked out his own choreographies for the first time, which soon became an integral part of the troupe's repertoire. From 1991 to 1996 he was ballet director at the Hagen Theater , where, according to critics, he succeeded in advancing "into the first member of his guild" and finally stripping off the label of provinciality from the Hagen dance troupe. With his anticlassical choreography of La Fille mal gardée , he earned wide recognition and was awarded a sponsorship award from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1993. After that he was ballet director at the Lucerne Theater for three seasons and from 1999 to 2001 at the Komische Oper Berlin . The dance troupe there was renamed BerlinBallett in 1999 and after Wherlock's departure in 2004 - with the ensembles of the German State Opera and the State Opera Unter den Linden - became the State Ballet Berlin . In Berlin he worked with the Italian dancers and choreographers Giorgio Madia and Massimo Gerardi , among others .

Parallel to his activity as a dancer in Cologne and in a management position in Hagen, Lucerne, Berlin and Basel, the choreographer worked with a number of European ensembles: New English Contemporary Ballet , Europa Danse (UNESCO), Scapino Ballet Rotterdam and Introdans in Arnhem, with the ensembles from Braunschweig, Düsseldorf, Essen and Karlsruhe, the Ballet National de Nancy et de Lorraine and the ensembles of Marseilles and Nice, the Finnish National Ballet, the Romanian National Ballet, the Iceland Ballet, in Graz, Singapore and San Martín in Argentina. His work has also been shown at festivals, including the Second Uni Modern Dance Festival of the AZet Dance Company in Kaiserslautern. He created a full-length ballet for Les Étoiles de l'Opéra National de Paris .

Ballet Basel

Since 2001, Wherlock has been leading and shaping the Basel Ballet , the dance troupe of the Basel Theater , developing new choreographies and since 2004 also directing the Basel tanzt Festival . In August 2014 he developed a new piece in Seoul with six dancers from the Seoul Ballet Theater : Snip Shot . A little later, the director of the Seoul Ballet Theater , James Jeton, created a dance piece with ensemble members of the Basel Ballet. The two pieces were performed together for the 20th anniversary of the South Korean troupe in Gwacheon and Seoul and then in the anniversary gala 15 Years of Ballet with Richard Wherlock in Basel.

Richard Wherlock has been supporting young talent for many years. Well-known dancers who appeared in his choreographies include the Spaniard Francesc Abós , the German Jochen Heckmann , the Argentine Cinthia Labaronne and the Italian Gaetano Posterino . Wherlock worked with the set designers Bruce French , Manfred Gruber , Regina Lorenz and Michael Simon as well as with the costume designers Antonio D'Amico , Edward Hermans , Helena de Medeiros , Heidi de Raad and Diana Stiehl . In April 2014 it was announced that Richard Wherlock would also be the Basel Ballet Director while Andreas Beck was in charge. For its first premiere in the Beck directorship, Wherlock chose the character of Tewje from Scholem Alejchems Tewje, the milkman , who achieved great popularity in the musical version Fiddler on the roof (in German: Anatevka ). He asked Olivier Truan from the Swiss klezmer band Kolsimcha to write the music for this ballet. The world premiere was a great success for composers and choreographers with audiences and press, including a standing ovation .

Richard Wherlock has been and is a juror at numerous international dance competitions.

Movie and TV

Wherlock was responsible for the choreography for Claude Lelouch's film Hasards ou Coïncidences (English: encounter in Venice , 1998). This film was successfully screened at the Venice International Film Festival , the Montreal World Film Festival and the Chicago International Film Festival .

In 2000 and 2003, two films were made in collaboration with the Swiss director Markus Fischer for the TV station DRS , both of which received multiple awards: Passengers and One Bullet Left . In 2012 the documentary Before Opening Night: Richard Wherlock and His Company by Simone Winkler described the tension of the ensemble before a premiere.

Quotes

“Choreography is my love and my passion. I cannot imagine a life - without choreography or without dance. "

- Richard Wherlock

“Respect is the company's philosophy. Each of us has a different origin and history, there are individuals and communities. Respect for skin color, language, sexuality, the workplace, the audience and, last but not least, the profession. I am not a political artist, but in the theater there is a wonderful opportunity to experience the diversity of people. "

- Richard Wherlock : Respect is our basis , Coop newspaper, October 26, 2010

Choreographies (selection)

Working at the Basel Theater

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The German Stage, 5/1996
  2. ^ Munzinger, biography Richard Wherlock, accessed February 27, 2016
  3. ^ Neue Zürcher Zeitung : Richard Wherlock stays , April 16, 2014
  4. ↑ TagesWoche (Basel): "Tewje" is a gorgeous ballet with even more gorgeous music , November 21, 2015
  5. ↑ Martina Wohlthat: Joy of Life and Exodus , Neue Zürcher Zeitung , 23 November 2015
  6. ^ Südkurier : When the milkman rings twice , November 23, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Wherlock, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British dancer and choreographer
DATE OF BIRTH August 21, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Bristol