David Dawson Info

David Dawson - Photo by Costin Radu

Biography

David Dawson is one of the most respected names amongst the younger generation of choreographers working in the classical ballet idiom today. Born in London, Dawson was trained at the Royal Ballet School from where he graduated in 1991 after he won the prestigious Prix de Lausanne. He has danced all over the world with companies including the Birmingham Royal Ballet, the English National Ballet and the Dutch National Ballet, whose then artistic director Wayne Eagling encouraged him to choreograph. This resulted in Dawson's first major creation, A Million Kisses to my Skin in 2000. Subsequently, he joined Ballett Frankfurt, where he worked with William Forsythe and performed for two more years before deciding to devote his time to creating his own new works.

Dawson has created numerous ballets internationally, including his full-length Giselle, which had its world premiere at the Semperoper, Germany. His works have entered repertoires of many of the leading ballet companies and have been numerously performed in more than 20 countries to much acclaim of both international critics and the public alike. He was honoured with the Benois de la Danse Choreography Award in 2003 and nominated for the UK Critics’ Circle National Dance Award as Best Classical Choreographer for The Grey Area. The process of choreographing this ballet was also vividly illustrated in Timothy Couchman's film 'The Grey Area - in Creation'.

Between 2004 and 2009 Dawson was Resident Choreographer for both the Dutch National Ballet and the Dresden Semperoper Ballet. Other significant works include, 00:00, for which Dawson was nominated for the highest dance prize of The Netherlands, The Golden Swan Award, as Best Choreographer in 2004. This was followed by Morning Ground and The Gentle Chapters for which he received the Choo San Goh Award in 2005. He then created Reverence for the Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet and in doing so became the first British choreographer to create a ballet for this legendary company. He was awarded Russia's highest theatre prize for visual art, the Golden Mask Award, as Best Choreographer in 2005. As his first commission for the Semperoper Ballett he created Das Verschwundene | The Disappeared, followed by A Sweet Spell of Oblivion, On the Nature of Daylight, and his highly acclaimed, The World According to Us. Most recently Dawson created his notable, The Third Light and dancingmadlybackwards. He created his Faun(e) for the English National Ballet's Ballets Russes Festival in London in 2009 and was nominated for the Best Classical Choreographer Dance Award by the UK Critics’ Circle at the end of the dance season and the Benois de la Dance 2010.
 

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