Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui defies easy description: choreographer, opera director, dancer, composer… Artistic director of Royal Ballet Flanders as well as of Eastman, and associate artist at Sadler’s Wells. The thirst to join hands with his counterparts has been a constant in his artistic DNA. »Sutra« (with the Shaolin monks and sculptor Antony Gormley), »Dunas« (with Maria Pagès), and »zero degrees« (with Akram Khan) are well-known examples. Recently, he teamed up with Irish dance-exponent Colin Dunne to create »Session«, which is currently touring the world. Cherkaoui debuted as an opera-choreographer with Guy Cassiers for his »House of Sleeping Beauties« (2009) and »Der Ring des Nibelungen« (2010-2013). In 2014 he ventured into his first opera direction, »Shell Shock«, written by Nicholas Lens and Nick Cave. Ever since, Cherkaoui was invited by some of the most prominent opera houses in Europe to direct and choreograph opera work, like Jean-Philippe Rameau’s »Les Indes galantes« (2016), Philip Glass’s »Satyagraha« (2017), Claude Debussy’s »Pelléas et Mélisande« (2018) and Christoph Willibald Gluck’s »Alceste« (2019). The slew of awards he has picked up reflects his genre-transcending prolificity, and include two Olivier Awards, three Tanz awards for choreographer of the year (2008, 2011, 2017), and the Europe Prize Theatrical Realities.