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Gala Hans van Manen 80 years

Introduction

On 11 July 2012, resident choreographer Hans van Manen will turn eighty. The Dutch National Ballet is celebrating this happy event one week earlier with a ballet gala dedicated to Van Manen and his work.

programme

For the occasion of his birthday, the Dutch National Ballet is presenting a programme that includes the new work he is creating for Present(s) (premiere February 2012), and a selection of his acclaimed ‘ballets for two’ and other highlights of his oeuvre. Guests from the Netherlands and abroad will also add sparkle to this special gala (dress code: black tie).

Van Manen, who is indisputably Holland’s greatest choreographer, has received numerous awards, including the Erasmus Prize and the Benois de la Danse Lifetime Achievement Award. On his seventy-fifth birthday, when the Dutch National Ballet organised a large-scale Hans van Manen Festival, he was made a Commander of the Order of the Netherlands Lion; an honour for ‘services of very exceptional merit’.

‘Hans van Manen is in a class of his own’ - de Volkskrant

‘Nobody reviewing the evening can conclude otherwise than that Van Manen is the greatest choreographer of the Netherlands’ - NRC Handelsblad about the opening evening of the Hans van Manen Festival?.