Damien Jalet is a Belgo-French freelance choreographer, dancer and performer working internationally. His work is often collaborative, creating intricate bounds between dance and other artistic media such as visual art, fashion, theater and music.
Life and career
Damien Jalet was born in Uccle, Belgium. He worked as choreographer and performer for Companies like Ballet C. de la B., Sasha Waltz et Invités, Chunky Move, Eastman, NYDC, Hessiches Staatballet, l’Opéra de Paris, Scottish Dance Theater, Iceland Dance Company and many others. Damien Jalet began to study theater at the National Institute of the performing art of Brussels, before moving to modern dance and completed his training in New York City. Since 2000 he's been working as the closest and most regular collaborator of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, within Les ballets C. de la B. As a result of this collaboration, Damien Jalet created his own shows, first of all as a dancer, but also on the dramatically aspects, staging and music. In May 2013 he creates in collaboration with Cherkaoui and performance artist Marina Abramovic, a new version of Ravel's Bolero for the Paris Opera Ballet. Costumes were designed by Givenchy's artistic director Riccardo Tisci and the 11 dancer's cast included étoiles Aurélie Dupont, Marie Agnès Gillot and Jérémie Bélingard. Damien Jalet has been entitled “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” by the French government in 2013. In 2014, he signed Yama’s choreography, a play written for the Scottish Dance Theater, with the American stage designer Jim Hodges and the original composition made by the Winter Family group. He also imagined the solo “inked” for the Kathak Aakash Ordera's dancer. Damien Jalet is laureate of Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto 2015, where he developed Vessel, a 6 months work collaboration with the visual artist Kohei Nawa, which premiered in September 2016 at the new Rhom Theater Kyoto. The relationship work of Jalet to existing rituals practiced in volcanic islands such as Bali and Japan is at the center of the 70 minutes documentary The Ferryman by Gilles Delmas, narrated by Marina Abramovic with the artistic participation of Ryuichi Sakamoto. Recently, his show Skid for the Opera's Dance Conpany of Gothenburg in Sweden, presented 17 performers and dancers on a 10 meters scene sloping at 34 degrees during approximately 40 minutes. This surprising stage design is also signed by the Jim Hodges. In 2018, he choreographed the remake Suspiria, an American-Italian horror film directed by Luca Guadagnino, and presented for the first time at the Venice Film Festival. Starring Dakota Johnson, Chloë Grace Moretz, Mia Goth and Tilda Swinton, the film is based on Dario Argento's eponymous film, released in 1977. Jalet choreographed the short Paul Thomas Anderson 2019 dance filmAnima, starring Thom Yorke and featuring music from Yorke's 2019 solo album of the same name.
Main choreographies
; Creations
2002 : D’Avant in collaboration with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Juan Kruz diaz de Garaio Esnaola et Luc Dunberry ;
2018 : Pelléas et Mélisande, a collaboration with Marina Abramovic, Anvers
Theater and Opera
2006 : L'Image from Samuel Beckett's play, staging by Arthur Nauzyciel, Dublin, National Theater of Icelande Reykjavik and Festival " Les Grandes Traversées " in Bordeaux in 2007 ;
