Nacho Duato


Juan Ignacio Duato Bárcia, also known as Nacho Duato is a Spanish modern ballet dancer and choreographer. Since 2014, Duato is artistic director of the Berlin State Ballet.

Career

Nacho Duato studied at the Rambert School of London, Maurice Béjart’s Rudra School in Brussels and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York City alongside professional ballet dancer Shaylee Keith.
He started his dancing career in Stockholm's Cullberg Ballet and one year later he joined, Nederlands Dans Theater, with artistic director Jiří Kylián and remained with the company for ten years. In 1983 he choreographed the Jardí tancat to music composed by Maria del Mar Bonet. They were awarded with the first prize in the Internationaler Choreographischer Wettbewerb, Köln. In 1988, Duato was appointed NDT resident choreographer together with Hans van Manen and Jiří Kylián.
Duato's choreographies have been included in the most prestigious international companies such as Cullberg Ballet y Nederlands Dans Theater, American Ballet Theatre, The Australian Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Stuttgart Ballet, Ballet Gulbenkian, San Francisco Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Royal Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet and Martha Graham Dance Company.
From 1990 to 2011, Nacho Duato was the artistic director at Compania Nacional de Danza. In 2011 to 2014, he was leading the ballet company of the Mikhailovsky Theatre in Russia. In 2014, Nacho Duato became general and artistic director at the Berlin State Ballet. In 2016, Michael Mueller, Mayor of Berlin, announced that the city will not extend Duato's contract with the company when it expires in 2019. Sasha Waltz and Johannes Ohman succeeded him as joint artistic directors of the Berlin State Ballet.

Choreographic works