Javier de Frutos
Henry St Clair
Rafi Gokay Wol
“I wish the world had more dances by Javier De Frutos. His work for theatre can be brutally powerful, but when it comes to making steps, his choreography communicates such clever inventive fun that it can make me laugh out loud.”
The Guardian, November 2015
Management in conjunction with MSA (general managers)
Javier De Frutos, acclaimed Latinx director, choreographer and designer (born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1963) was named one of the most influential people in the UK by the Evening Standard in 2016. In addition, he is one of only three artists in the history of the Olivier Awards to have received nominations in all dance categories. His awards include the 2007 Olivier Award for Best Theatre Choreography for Cabaret, the 2011 Evening Standard Award for The Most Incredible Thing (in collaboration with Pet Shop Boys), two 2005 Critics Circle Awards for Milagros (Royal New Zealand Ballet) and Elsa Canasta (Rambert and Scottish Ballet), the 2004 Time Out Award for Sour Milk (Candoco Dance Company), the 1997 South Bank Show award for Grass, and the Prix de Auteur in the 1996 Concours de Seine-Saint Denis in Paris.
Further credits include the National Theatre’s production of London Road, winner of the Critics Circle Award for Best Musical, and for which he received an Olivier Award nomination for the stage version, and the 2017 Chita Rivera Award for best choreography in a feature film for the screen adaptation. From Here To Eternity, the Tim Rice musical which he premiered on the West End, was nominated for the 2014 WhatsOnStage Award for Best Choreography, and his work on The Anatomy of a Passing Cloud (Royal New Zealand Ballet) was nominated for the 2016 Olivier Award and the 2017 National Dance Award
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His work in music video has been recognised with a nomination for best choreography from the 2012 UK Music Video Awards for his collaboration with Jake Nava in Delilah’s Inside My Love.
In 2000, the South Bank Show dedicated a full feature to his work which was nominated at the Royal Society Television Awards for Best Arts Documentary. De Frutos also became the first recipient of The Arts Council of England Fellowship, through which he studied extensively the works of Tennessee Williams. In 2011, the BBC aired his project, The Most Incredible Thing, and its US premiere took place in Charlotte, North Carolina in March 2018. In that same year, De Frutos was invited by the McColl Center to be their Artist in Residence. He was the first director/choreographer in their history to be given such an honor. In 2017, De Frutos directed the highly acclaimed production of Phillip Glass’ opera Les Enfants Terribles, a collaboration between the Royal Opera and the Royal Ballet.
Most recently, two of his short films The Burning Building and Whoever You Are have been internationally recognised in several film festivals, gathering an impressive list of accolades including Best Indie, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. He also serves as member of the jury for Dance Camera West, Dance in Focus Film Festival: Reflections and Festival Videodanza de Puerto Rico.
De Frutos is currently in development on a stage adaptation of Daniel Karslake’s seminal documentaries For the Bible Tells Me So and For They Know Not What They Do.
“I wish the world had more dances by Javier De Frutos. His work for theatre can be brutally powerful, but when it comes to making steps, his choreography communicates such clever inventive fun that it can make me laugh out loud.”
“It is a delicious dance oxymoron – truly, an incredible thing — that one of the most controversial and courageous choreographers of the modern age, Javier de Frutos, has also created a contender for the best new family ballet of the 21st Century.”
“So observationally precise is De Frutos’s choreography, and so convincingly exact the performances, that this simple conceit becomes a wonderfully layered portrait of the intimacy, competitiveness and dependency that make a stage partnership.”
“This postmodern rethinking of the classical ballet format has the potential to become a decisive turning point in the history of dance-making.”
