Douglas Lee (choreographer)

Choreographer Douglas Lee in rehearsal

Douglas Lee (born 4 March 1977) is a British ballet dancer and choreographer. A former principal dancer with the Stuttgart Ballet, his ballets have been premiered by Stuttgart Ballet, Norwegian National Ballet, New York City Ballet, Netherlands Dance Theatre, and several other European ballet companies.

Life and career

Douglas Lee was born in London and started his ballet training at the Arts Educational Schools London. He then received a scholarship for the Royal Ballet School, where he graduated in 1996, winning the Alicia Markova Award.

Lee then joined The Stuttgart Ballet; his promotion to principal dancer followed in 2002.[1] As a principal dancer, Lee danced many roles for choreographers such as John Cranko, Jiri Kylian, John Neumeier, Hans Van Manen, Glen Tetley, George Balanchine and William Forsythe.

Douglas made his choreographic debut in February 1999 for the Stuttgart-based Noverre Society's Young Choreographers, upon which he was commissioned to create a new work for the Stuttgart Ballet. He also participated twice at the New York Choreographic Institute to work with dancers of The New York City Ballet.

With Aubade and Lachrymal, Lee presented his first works for the Stuttgart Opera House; new creations for the Stuttgart Ballet also included Viewing Room, Dummy Run and Leviathan. His tenth work for the Stuttgart Ballet, Nightlight, premiered in March 2010. Following his choreographic success in Stuttgart, he became a freelance choreographer working internationally.[2] His creation Fanfare LX for the Stuttgart Ballet was taken into the repertoire of the Staatsballett Berlin. He created Fractured Wake and returned to create 5 for Silver for the Norwegian National Ballet, Rubicon Play for the Royal Ballet of Flanders and Lifecasting set to the music of Steve Reich for the New York City Ballet, which was shortlisted in Time Out NY as one of the outstanding dance works of 2009[3] and taken into the Stuttgart Ballet repertoire.

He then created Miniatures for the Stuttgart Ballet and Souvenir for Perm Opera Ballet Theatre which received 3 Golden Mask Award Nominations,[4] Septet for Tulsa Ballet, Aria for the Stuttgart Ballet, Iris and A-Life for Ballet Zurich,[5] Chimera for Ballet Augsburg, Legion for Netherlands Dance Theatre 2,[6] PianoPiece for Theater Dortmund,[7] The Fade for Ballet Mainz and Doll Songs for Ballet Nuremberg.

Choreographic work

References

  1. ↑ Cripps, Charlotte (25 March 2008). "British Export Gets Rushed off His Feet". The Independent. Retrieved via HighBeam Research 18 November 2013 (subscription required).
  2. ↑ "Choreographers at the Stuttgart Ballet". Stuttgart Ballet.
  3. ↑ Kourlas, Gia. "Cast away". Time Out New York.
  4. ↑ "Golden Mask Nominees (season 2010 - 2011)". Golden Mask Russian Festival of Performing Arts.
  5. ↑ "Ballet Zurich – A Portrait". Ballet Zurich.
  6. ↑ "Douglas Lee". Nederlands Dans Theater.
  7. ↑ Abegg, Tilman (26 October 2013). "Choreograf Lee: Die Tänzer sind das Klavier". Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. Retrieved 18 November 2013 (German).

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, February 21, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.