Flemish-Moroccan choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui began his career in 1999 with Andrew Wale’s Anonymous Society. Since then he has made more than 50 pieces and received two Olivier Awards, three Ballet Tanz awards, and the Kairos Prize for his artistic vision and his quest for intercultural dialogue. Among his many significant early works are pieces made for les ballets C de la B; Sutra, which premiered at Sadler’s Wells in 2008 and continues touring to this day; and Myth (2007) and Origine (2008), produced during his four-year residency at Toneelhuis in Antwerp.

In 2015, Cherkaoui directed his first full-length theatre production in Tokyo, bringing the beloved manga character Astro Boy to life on stage, and was movement director for Lyndsey Turner’s Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch at the Barbican Centre in London. He also choreographed a new Firebird for Stuttgart Ballet. Since 2015, Cherkaoui has been Artistic Director at the Royal Ballet Flanders, where he created Fall (2015), Exhibition (2016) and Requiem (2017). He combines this work with his artistic direction of Eastman, his own company, for whose ensemble he has created Fraktus V (2015), Icon (2016), and Stoic (2018). Some of his most recent ballet commissions include Medusa (2019) for The Royal Ballet in London and Exposure (2020) for the Paris Opera Ballet. Between 2017 and 2021 he choreographed several feature films, including Lukas Dhont’s Girl and Marjane Satrapi’s Radioactive.

In 2019, Cherkaoui made his Broadway debut as choreographer for the Alanis Morissette musical Jagged Little Pill, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Choreography. Beginning in 2022, he will direct the Ballet of the Grand Théâtre de Genève. He is also an associate artist at Sadler’s Wells (London) and Théâtre National de Bretagne (Rennes). 

Damien Jalet is an independent Belgian and French choreographer and dancer whose work has been presented all over the world. Interested in dance’s intersection with other media such as visual art, music, cinema, theatre and fashion, his works are often collaborative.

His film The Ferryman highlights the relation between his works and existing rituals practiced in Bali and Japan. Presented at the Venice Biennale in 2017, it featured collaboration with artist Marina Abramović and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. He was the 2017 artistic director of the UK National Youth Dance Company, and since 2017, he has been a resident artist at the Théâtre National de Bretagne (TNB). That same year, he directed Skid for GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, featuring 17 dancers and performed entirely on a 10 square meter platform inclined at 34 degrees.

In February 2018, he directed his first opera Pelléas et Mélissande alongside Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui with a set by Marina Abramović at the Antwerp Opera. In 2019, he became artist in residence at Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris. He choreographed the entirely danced film Anima directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, which was nominated for Best Musical Film at the 2019 GRAMMY Awards, and won the Best Choreography Award at the UK Music Video Awards. The same year, he created four numbers with Madonna. His next projects include the creation Mist for Dutch company NDT1 and Planet [wanderer] that premiered in Théâtre de Chaillot in May 2021. As a teacher, Jalet has also taught his technique using centrifugal force in many companies and institutions including Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, ImPulsTanz Vienna, Atelier de Paris, and Architanz Tokyo.

Damien Jalet was named Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 2013. 

Having briefly studied contemporary dance at Cambridge as an extra-curricular activity, Antony Gormley has taken inspiration from pure dance, with the body released as an expressive subject in its own right, detached from concerns with narrative, for 30 years. He is particularly interested in contemporary dance, and considers the dancer’s life the most generous and demanding of any profession using life itself as the primary medium of communication. He is widely acclaimed for his sculptures, installations and public artworks that investigate the relationship of the human body to space in a way that confronts fundamental questions of where human beings stand in relation to nature and the cosmos.

Gormley’s work has been widely exhibited throughout the UK and internationally with exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery, London (2016); Forte di Belvedere, Florence (2015); Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern (2014); Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia (2012); Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2012); The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (2011); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2010); Hayward Gallery, London (2007); Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (1993); Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and Humlebæk, Denmark (1989). Permanent public works include the Angel of the North (Gateshead, England), Another Place (Crosby Beach, England), Inside Australia (Lake Ballard, Western Australia), Exposure (Lelystad, The Netherlands) and Chord (MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

Gormley’s work in dance includes the critically acclaimed collaborations with Akram Khan, Hofesh Shechter, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, and Nitin Sawhney on zero degrees (2005, Sadler’s Wells) and again with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui on Sutra (2008, Sadler’s Wells); Noetic (2014, Göteborg Opera); and Icon (2016, Göteborg Opera). 

Founded in January 2010, Eastman was set up to produce and promote the work of its artistic director Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Cherkaoui’s non-hierarchical thinking on movement, body language and culture is the basis of his artistic approach. His work offers the audience a vast array of projects and collaborations across many forms of performance including contemporary dance, theatre, ballet, opera and music. Set in his native harbor city of Antwerp (Belgium) and resident at DE SINGEL International Arts Centre (Antwerp), Eastman forms the central point for all of Cherkaoui’s work.Cherkaoui created amongst others Babel(words), Play, TeZukA, Puz/zle, 4D, Fractus V, Session and 3S under Eastman’s wing. Eastman’s international partners include La Monnaie / De Munt (Brussels), Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, Grande Halle de La Villette (Paris), DE SINGEL International Arts Centre (Antwerp) and Sadler’s Wells (London). Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Eastman are supported by the Flemish Government and the BNP Paribas Foundation. Eastman was European Cultural Ambassador 2013.