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Of Light, Wind and Waters

Opernhaus, Zürich Saturday, January 18, 2025
Zürich Ballet,, Saturday, January 18. 2025

In his new full-length ballet for Ballett Zürich - his first for the company - Kim Brandstrup celebrates the complex life and prolific imagination of Hans Christian Andersen - arguably Denmark’s most famous author, and best known internationally for his bitter-sweet fairytales. The ballet marks the 150th anniversary of Andersen’s death.

In his new ballet, Kim Brandstrup will examine Andersen’s deep sense of himself as an outsider - he was born into poverty and was often ill at ease with the secure 19th century Danish bourgeois society to which he was admitted when he made his reputation as a literary figure.

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Echo and Narcissus

Ustinov Studio/Theatre Royal, Bath
Ustinov Studio/Theatre Royal, Bath, 19 June 2024

..exquisitely formed and performed.

..a potent blend of dark depths and beguiling beauty.

Sanjoy Roy, The Guardian ★★★★

A thing of considerable - and well-considered - beauty.

Donald Hutura, The Times ★★★★

Award-winning choreographer Kim Brandstrup completed his mesmerising mythological trilogy with Echo & Narcissus

Teresa Guerreiro Culture Wisper ★★★★★

It is transfixing to watch; glorious movement that communicates such sad longing.

Sarah Crompton, The Observer★★★★★

- myth magically brought to life in dance

Louise Levene, Financial Times★★★★★

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Metamorphoses

Ustinov Studio/Theatre Royal, Bath
Ustinov Studio/Theatre Royal, Bath, 31 January 2024

Metamorphoses

“Five stars for Kim Brandstrup’s Metamorphoses - up close and personal with mythology.”

Louise Levene, Financial Times ★★★★★

“Brandstrup’s economy, his ability to conjure entire worlds and complex ideas out of the simplest ingredients…”

Sarah Crompton, The Observer ★★★★★

“Over the past four decades the Danish-born, British-based choreographer Kim Brandstrup has gradually acquired an international reputation for high-brow, high-quality artistry….A thoughtfully crafted and classy evening.”

Donald Hutera, The Times ★★★★

“Literate, thoughtful and serious, Kim Brandstrup is one of the most honest and honourable of contemporary choreographers…the double-bill [Metamorphoses/Minotaur] is quietly and characteristically satisfying….This was a beautiful event” - Rupert Christiansen, The Spectator

“Drawing inspiration from classical mythology Brandstrup offers a startling fresh look at human frailty….Brandstrup’s first love was cinema, and the techniques and visuals of cinema always permeate his work.”

Teresa Guerriero, Culture Whisper ★★★★★

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Breaking Bach

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
ENB Studio, 9 October 2023

Breaking Bach

Taking a break from his work with dancers trained in the classical tradition, Brandstrup accepted a  challenge thrown out to him by renowned Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment to work with students from Acland Burghley School in north London where the Orchestra has its base and which has a strong tradition of Hip Hop dancing.

Over the past year Brandstrup and his specialist choreographic team (Tommy Franzen and Deavion Brown) have taken a group of talented youngsters from this north London comprehensive school on a remarkable journey into the music of Bach - working alongside the OAE as artistic equals. 

A UK and international tour for Breaking Bach is currently in the planning stages for 2024/25 including major debuts on the pop and mainstream classical festival stages. Kim Brandstrup will make a companion piece with the young dancers for the touring programme.

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Minotaur

Ustinov Studio / Theatre Royal Bath
Ustinov Studio/Theatre Royal, Bath, 15 August 2022

Minotaur

Kim Brandstrup’s ravishing new work puts Ariadne centre stage - Minotaur, commissioned by Deborah Warner as part of her enterprising new regime at the tiny Ustinov space, has the quality of a dream, each successive scene offering pictures of haunting encounters that feel at once surreal and real.It is incredibly beautiful and serene, with superb dancing from all concerned.

Sarah Crompton, The Observer★★★★★

“..strong material and dazzling performances combine to create a hugely satisfying evening.”

Louise Levene, Financial Times ★★★★★

“..a thrilling and highly original ballet..”

Cheryl Markosky, Broadway World★★★★★

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Between the Rooms

LA Opera
13 May 2022

Between the Rooms

Choreographer and film-maker Kim Brandstrup has teamed up with celebrated composer Anna Clyne on Between the Rooms, a 10-minute film commissioned by LA Opera as part of its Digital Shorts series.

Between the Rooms is Anna Clyne’s setting of a collection of Emily Dickinson's "envelope poems" for soprano Joélle Harvey and string quintet and features soloists Alina Cojocaru and Matthew Ball. Ms. Cojocaru is a former Principal Dancer with The Royal Ballet who has danced with many of the world’s leading ballet companies. Matthew Ball is a Principal Dancer of The Royal Ballet. The film is produced by Lucie Conrad.

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Kiev - film with Alina Cojocaru

Sadler's Wells /Alina Cojocaru/Lucie Conrad
Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, 20 February 2020

Directed by Kim Brandstrup

“In early December 2019 Alina went back to The State Ballet School in Kiev for the frst time in 25 years. For us who were there witnessing this reunion it was profoundly moving; not only to observe Alina’s gratitude and tribute to her teachers’ knowledge and guidance – but also to see the pride and delight in their eyes in how Alina had taken flight.

The film attempts to capture some of this gratitude Alina feels towards her teachers, their guidance and the knowledge they imparted – how their “imprint” still guides and moves Alina whenever she enters the studio.”

Kim Brandstrup

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Again, Again, Again – on rhythm and the indefatigable pleasures of repetition.

Center for Ballet and the Arts, NYU

Again, Again, Again - on rhythm in dance and music and the indefatigable pleasures of repetition

Kim Brandstrup has been appointed as one of two Director’s Fellows at New York University’s Center for Ballet and the Arts (CBA) for 2019/20.

During his residency Brandstrup will initiate an artistic project around the relationship between music and dance under the umbrella title Again, Again, Again – on rhythm and the indefatigable pleasures of repetition.

CBA is a highly-regarded international research institute for scholars and artists of ballet and its related arts and sciences.“CBA fosters a contemplative environment for creative thinking, research, and art making. It made my Fellowship an invaluable professional endeavour at a key inflection point in my career,” reflected 2018 - 2019 Director’s Fellow Joe Melillo.

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In Absentia

Nathalia Osipova/Sadler's Wells
Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, 22 October 2018

In Absentia

Solo for David Hallberg to Bach's Chaconne commissioned by Nathalia Osipova for her Sadler's Wells season Pure Dance.

'The piece I found most compelling was the Hallberg solo, In Absentia by Kim Brandstrup. In what appears to be a dark and lonely apartment, Hallberg stares moodily at a TV screen – the sole source of light, his famous classical silhouette thrown into sharp relief on the back wall – before embarking on a pensive solo to Bach’s Chaconne for violin. There is something about Bach’s music for solo violin or cello that seems to imbue movements with a sense of grand and eternal spaciousness. Brandstrup’s swirling choreography benefitted from this, and it worked well on Hallberg’s long lines and gracious movement quality.' Bachtrack.Com

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Verweile doch..

Saarbrucken Staatstheater Ballet
Saarbrucken Staatstheater, October 27, 2018

Verweile doch

Kim Brandstrup has created a new version of the classic Yiddish play The Dybbuk for Saarbrucken Staatstheater Ballet. Verweile doch.. (Stay awhile..), which had its World premiere on Saturday October 27, is framed by an installation by lighting designer Jean Kalman and conceptual artist Christian Boltanski and set to Leonard Bernstein’s haunting score - the composer’s last collaboration with Jerome Robbins and New York City Ballet (1974).

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Faces

Lucie Conrad
ROH Linbury Theatre , September 22 2018

Three film portraits of Alina Cojocaru, Zenaida Yanowsky and Carlos Acosta

Directed and choreographed by Kim Brandstrup these short films are conceived as 3 intimate portrait of each of these unique dancers.

Each film is focusing on the dancer's face and endeavour to capture the magical moment before motion: the moment of total focus and alertness as the dancer listens to the music and internally charts the choreography in the mind.

The films feature three of the most extraordinary dancers of their generation offering a deeper insight into their artistry. While every frame is carefully choreographed the film will give the impression of catching the dancers off guard in stillness and reflection. Like all good portraits we aim to capture the essence of the ‘sitter’ and render visible the dancer’s internal focus and external oblivion.

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Life is a Dream

Rambert Dance Company
Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, 23 May 2018

Sadler's Wells Theatre, Bergen International Festival and on tour 2018/19

Life is A Dream is the first full-length ballet presented by Rambert in forty years, Brandstrup’s new work is choreographed on the full company of Rambert’s dancers with projections by legendary filmmakers the Quay Brothers and lighting design by Jean Kalman.

At Rambert's season at London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre the ballet drew admiring reviews from the UK dance press - “a strikingly original dance-drama” (The Observer), “strongly scored, beautifully designed, inventively choreographed, silkily danced” (Financial Times), “a flickering dreamscape with a dash of the silent movie about it” (Daily Telegraph).

A symphony orchestra adds to the other-worldly atmosphere created by Brandstrup, with a score of late works by Witold Lutosławski. It’s the first time dance has been set to music by this major 20th-century composer.

Life is A Dream is commissioned by Bergen International Festival and is supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute / Polska Music, Cockayne Grants for the Arts – a donor-advised fund of The London Community Foundation, and Arts Council England.

There will be further performances in the UK and internationally through to 2019.

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Shaken Mirror "Rystet Spejl"

The Royal Danish Ballet
The Royal Danish Theatre, København, 28th May 2016

Kim Brandstrup's full-length work for the Royal Danish Ballet, Rystet Spejl (Shaken Mirror) was awarded the prize for the Best Dance Production of 2016/17 at the annual Reumert Awards in Copenhagen.

The Reumert Awards recognise excellence in all areas of Denmark's performing arts - theatre, musical theatre, dance and opera - and are equivalent in importance and prestige to the Olivier Awards in the UK and the Tonys in the US.  The ceremony took place on June 10 at the Royal Danish Playhouse in Copenhagen.

The Reumert Award is the third endorsement of the London-based choreographer's work in the past year.  In February this year he received a UK National Dance Award for Best Modern Choreography for Transfigured Night for Rambert. In November 2016 he received the Honorary Dance Prize awarded by the Wilhelm Hansen Foundation in recognition of his remarkable body of work over 35 years in both contemporary dance and ballet, and his profound impact on Danish dance.

Inspired by the poetry of Denmark's foremost contemporary poet Søren Ulrik Thomsen, Rystet Spejl was an ambitious collaboration which created a multi-layered universe of movement, video, text and music on the stage of the Royal Danish Playhouse - the whole evening conceived by Kim Brandstrup.

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Transfigured Night

Rambert Dance Company
Sadlers Wells Theatre, 3 November 2015

Kim Brandstrup won the award for Best Modern Choreography at the National Dance Awards ceremony, held at Sadler’s Wells Theatre on Monday February 6, 2017.

Brandstrup’s admired work for Rambert triumphed in a particularly strong shortlist which included new works by Javier de Frutos, Akram Khan, Russell Maliphant and Crystal Pite.

Writing after the awards ceremony, dance critic Judith Mackrell wrote in The Guardian:

“(Brandstrup’s) setting of Transfigured Night, Schoenberg’s hauntingly beautiful titular score, ranks as one of the finest in his long career: superbly constructed, inventively musical, beautiful and profoundly humane in its portrayal of trepidation, tenderness and forgiveness”.

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The Wilheim Hansen Honorary Prize

On the Tuesday October 25, 2016 Kim Brandstrup received The Honorary Dance Prize awarded by the Wilhelm Hansen Foundation.The prize recognises Brandstrup’s body of work in both contemporary dance and ballet over a period of some 35 years, including a series of narrative full-length pieces - most recently, Rystet Spejl (Shaken Mirror), his multi-layered work for the Royal Danish Ballet which challenged its dancers, enriched the company’s repertoire and played to full houses in Copenhagen earlier this year.

The judges hailed Brandstrup’s impact on the Danish dance world as one of the first Danes to study modern dance abroad. He studied dance and choreography at the influential London School of Contemporary Dance in the early 1980s, forming his own company, Arc, in 1985. Since 2005 he has worked as a freelance choreographer making work for, amongst others, The Royal Ballet, New York City Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and Rambert.

Previous recipients of the Foundation’s honorary prize include, in the dance world, Peter Martins, John Neumeier, recipients in other art forms include theatre director Peter Brook, writer Astrid Lindgren and architect Daniel Libeskind. 

Shaken Mirror "Rystet Spejl"

The Royal Danish Ballet
The Royal Danish Theatre, København, 28th May 2016

DENMARK - The Royal Danish Ballet (2016)

Kim Brandstrup's new work for The Royal Danish Ballet, received unanimous praise from the danish press following the premiere on the 28th May 2016 :

"An enchanting, beautiful and evocative intersection between dance, text and music", "a rare integrated work" and "beautiful from beginning to end" were some of the verdicts of the Danish dance press to Brandstrup's latest full-length work for the Royal Danish Ballet.

Rystet spejl - whose English title translates as 'Shaken Mirror' is inspired by the poetry of Denmark's foremost contemporary poet Søren Ulrik Thomsen and is a collaboration with Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen, designer Bente Lykke Møller, British video artist Leo Warner and lighting design by Jean Kalman,

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JEUX

New York City Ballet
David H Koch Theater, Lincoln Center, NYC, Thursday, October 8 2015

Jeux for New York City Ballet

Kim Brandstrup made his choreographic debut at New York City Ballet on 8th October 2015 . Set to Claude Debussy’s Jeux, with lighting design is by Jean Kalman and costume design by Marc Happel, Costume Director of NYCB. The piece, part of a mixed programme, is performed as part of NYCB's Autumn season at the David H Koch Theater of New York's Lincoln Centre and will return in the Winter season Febuary 2016.

Debussy's Jeux was originally commissioned by Serge Diaghilev for the Ballets Russes and premiered in May 1913.It's a score that has fascinated Brandstrup ever since he and director Phyllida Lloyd used it in a quasi-operatic context for his 2006 music theatre project The Fall of the House of Usher(Bregenz Festival).

"Debussy's last orchestral score is in many ways his most modern and has a mysterious cinematic quality. Musical material is often surprisingly and abruptly juxtaposed and gives the sense of jump cuts in a film - rapid changes of mood, pace and 'location' makes it very exciting and strangely modern' says Brandstrup.

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5 Interviews about Jeux and Transfigured Night

Playbill Art: Interview with David Jay (5 Oct 2015:)

New York Times: Interview with Roslyn Sulcas:"(7 Oct 2015)

Financial Times: Interview: with Louise Levene (23 Oct 2015)

The Gaurdian:Facing the music: Kim Brandstrup (26 Oct 2015)

BBC 3 : Private Passions with Michael Berkeley (1 Nov 2015)

Leda and the Swan

Royal Ballet
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden , 5 September 2014

WATCH FILM ON PROJECT PAGE

"Kim Brandstrup’s masterly Leda and The Swan, which mingles Yeats’s poetry (read by Fiona Shaw) has the texture and heft of proper film-making. Zenaida Yanowsky and Tommy Franzen are transfixing."

Sarah Compton, The Telegraph

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Ceremony of Innocence

ROYAL BALLET - Royal Opera House (2014) SNAPE MALTINGS - The Royal Ballet/Dance East (2013)

Part of a triple-bill with the Royal Ballet Flanders, and set in the the beautiful brickwork structure of the Snape Maltings Concert Hall in Aldeburgh, this danced celebration of Benjamin Britten's Centenary year is set to his Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, featuring some of the finest dancers from the Royal Ballet (London) including Edward Watson and Mara Galeazzi.

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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Fitzroy Productions / BAM / Epidaurus Festival
London, New York, Greece, 2012 / 2013

NEW YORK - BAM (2013) LONDON - Old Vic Tunnels (2012) GREECE - Epidaurus Festival (2012)

This staging of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's epic poem premiered as part of the Epidauras Festival in Greece, before a season in the Old Vic Tunnels in London. Directed by Phyllida Lloyd and staring actress Fiona Shaw and dancer Daniel Hay-Gordon. The poem, Coleridge's longest, tells the story of a sailor who shoots an albatross during a voyage and runs into a seam of ill fortune, as the rest of the crew perish on board.

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Eugene Onegin

NEW YORK - The Metropolitan Opera (2017/2013) LONDON - English National Opera (2011)

A co-production between the English National Opera and The Metropolitan Opera of Tchaikovsky's Eugene starring Anna Netrebko and Mariusz Kwiecien, directed by Deborah Warner

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Metamorphosis: Titian2012 - Machina

Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House, July 2012

LONDON - The Royal Opera House (2012)

As part of the Cultural Olympiad in July 2012, Wayne McGregor and Kim Brandstrup joins forces to create a new dance work – part of ‘Titian 2012’ at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Commissioned jointly by the Olympic Festival, The National Gallery and The Royal Ballet, the evening brings together Turner Prize winning visual artists, newly commissioned music and new choreography in celebration of Monica Mason’s 10-year tenure as Director of The Royal Ballet.

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