Christian Spuck

Choreographer

Christian Spuck was born in Marburg, Germany. After his ballet training at the renowned John Cranko School in Stuttgart, he was a dancer with Jan Lauwers’s Needcompany and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker’s Rosas Ensemble. He became a member of Stuttgart Ballet in 1995. In 1998 he created his first ballet, Passacaglia, for the company. Christian Spuck was appointed resident choreographer of Stuttgart Ballet in 2001. He choreographed 15 productions for the company including three full-length works: Lulu. Eine Monstretragödie, based on the play by Frank Wedekind (2003), Der Sandmann, based on the novella of the same name by E.T.A. Hoffmann (2006) and Das Fräulein von S. (2012), which is also based on a tale by Hoffmann. In these productions Spuck has continued the narrative ballet tradition that was established by John Cranko with the Stuttgart Ballet. He has also choreographed the full-length ballet Die Kinder (2004) for Aalto Ballett Theater in Essen, a production which was nominated for the “Prix Benois de la Danse”. In 2006 Christian Spuck was appointed resident choreographer of the Chicagobased Hubbard Street 2 Dance Company for a season. He was also awarded the German “Zukunft” dance prize for his choreographic work. For Gauthier Dance in Stuttgart he created Don Q. Eine nicht immer getanzte Revue über den Verlust der Wirklichkeit for Eric Gauthier and Egon Madsen which has been performed innumerous times since 2007. Christian Spuck has created further choreographies for several renowned ballet companies in Europe and the USA. These include Morphing Games for the Aterballetto of Italy (1999), Adagio for dancers of the New York City Ballet (2000), this- for the Berlin Staatsoper Ballet (2003), The Return of Ulysses for the Royal Ballet of Flanders (2006, with a guest performance at the 2009 Edinburgh International Festival) and Woyzeck for the Norwegian National Ballet (2011). In recent years Christian Spuck has extended his artistic reach to film and opera. He directed his first opera, Berenice by Johannes Maria Staud, for the Theater Heidelberg in 2005. Marcia Haydée als Penelope, a 25-minute dance film featuring Marcia Haydée and Robert Tewsley, was broadcast by ARTE in 2006. Three years later he was both director and choreographer for a co-production of Gluck’s Orphée et Euridice by the Staatsoper Stuttgart and the Stuttgart Ballet. In 2010 he directed Verdi’s opera Falstaff for the Staatstheater Wiesbaden. Spuck’s production of the ballet Leonce und Lena, based on the work by Georg Büchner and originally performed by the Aalto Ballett Theater in Essen in 2008, 02 has also become part of the repertoires of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and Stuttgart Ballet. His piece poppea//poppea, created for Gauthier Dance at the Theaterhaus Stuttgart, was named one of the world’s ten most successful dance productions of 2010 by “Dance Europe” magazine, and also won Germany’s “Der Faust 2011” theatre prize and the Italian “Danza/Danza” award. A 3D film version of the piece premiered in December 2013. Christian Spuck took over the directorship of Ballet Zurich at the beginning of the 2012/13 season. For his first work under his new stewardship he has choreographed a new production of Romeo and Juliet and showed his productions Leonce und Lena and Woyzeck. This season he directed Berlioz’ opera La Damnation de Faust at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. The next project is a ballet version of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (World Premiere: October 2014).