Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui is a Belgian choreographer and director whose work connects contemporary dance and ballet with live music, theatre, visual art and multiple movement traditions. Born in Antwerp on 10 March 1976, he trained at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels and performed in the original cast of Alain Platel's *Iets op Bach* in 1998, placing him within the Belgian contemporary-dance network before turning to choreography. His background is commonly described as Flemish-Moroccan, a dual cultural frame that has informed work concerned with language, belief and encounters across difference.

Cherkaoui's choreographic debut came in 1999 with Andrew Wale's Jacques Brel-based contemporary musical *Anonymous Society*. At les ballets C de la B he created *Rien de Rien* (2000), *Foi* (2003) and *Tempus Fugit* (2004)—works that established his signature approach: dance organized alongside theatrical characters, music, speech and performers carrying different movement histories rather than a single uniform technique. He developed parallel collaborations with choreographer Damien Jalet, creating *d'avant* in 2002, and dancer Akram Khan, with whom he made the duet *zero degrees* in 2005. From 2006 to 2009, based at Antwerp's Toneelhuis, he created *Myth* (2007) and *Origine* (2008).

In 2008, Cherkaoui premiered *Sutra* at Sadler's Wells, a landmark collaboration with visual artist Antony Gormley and monks from the Shaolin Temple. Its modular boxes, live performers and martial movement vocabulary made collaboration itself visible. In 2010 he founded Eastman in Antwerp. That year, working again with Damien Jalet and Gormley, he created *Babel(words)*, which won the 2011 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production; Gormley separately received Outstanding Achievement in Dance. His *Puz/zle*, first presented in 2012, won the Olivier for Best New Dance Production in 2014. These credits matter: they were works built with named choreographic, design, musical and performing collaborators.

Cherkaoui's practice expanded across ballet companies, opera houses and theatre. He choreographed for Paris Opera Ballet, The Royal Ballet and Ballets de Monte-Carlo, and directed opera for La Monnaie, Bayerische Staatsoper and Opera Ballet Vlaanderen. In 2015 he became artistic director of the ballet company at Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, a role he held through 2022 while continuing to lead Eastman. Beginning with the 2022–23 season, he became director of the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, extending his influence beyond individual works to company programming, identity and repertory stewardship.