© Agathe Poupeney
EMANUEL GAT
Artistic Director and Choreographer
Emanuel Gat was born in Israel in 1969. After his military service, he entered the Rubin Academy of Music in Tel-Aviv, with the aim of developing his musical practice. His first encounter with dance was at the age of 23 during a workshop led by Israeli choreographer Nir Ben Gal. Few months later, he joined the Liat Dror Nir Ben Gal Company with whom he created two works and toured internationally. He started working as an independent choreographer in 1994.
During the following ten years, Gat has developed a unique and personal approach to choreography and dance making, through numerous projects, collaborations and creation processes, setting the foundations for his artistic vision and laying the groundwork for his future body of work.
He founded his company, Emanuel Gat Dance, at the Suzanne Dellal Centre in Tel Aviv in 2004, and has since created a diverse repertoire of works. His first pieces for the company were created that same year: “Winter Voyage” to the music of Franz Schubert and “The Rite of Spring”, his original take on Stravinski’s masterpiece, which received a Bessy Award for best choreography for their presentation at Lincoln Center Festival in New York in 2006. He then created “K626” (2006) and “3for2007” (2007), before choosing to settle in France.
“Silent Ballet” (2008) was the first piece created in France, followed by “Winter Variations” in 2009 and “Brilliant Corners” in 2011 for which Gat also composed the music score. By that time, Emanuel Gat Dance has gained international recognition for its unique voice and has toured regularly to the four corners of the world to great critical acclaim.
In 2013, Emanuel Gat was named associated artist to the Montpellier Danse Festival, where he created “The Goldlandbergs” and “Corner Etudes”, and presented a photographic installation that was his debut work as a photographer. In 2014, he created “Plage Romantique and “SUNNY” in 2016, a collaboration with musician Awir Leon.
In 2017, Gat developed a unique collaboration with the Ballet de l'Opera de Lyon for the creation of “TENWORKS”, a program of ten short pieces mixing dancers from both companies; and “DUOS”, a series of site specific duets presented in several Museums and at different public locations. In 2018, Gat was named associated artist to the National Theater of Chaillot in Paris, and during that same year he collaborated with the prestigious Ensemble Modern from Frankfurt and created "Story Water" at the Cour d'Honneur at the Palais des Papes, one of the most iconic stages in the world during the Festival d’Avignon, gathering 12 dancers and 13 musicians, with music by Pierre Boulez, Rebecca Saunders and Gat himself.
Gat’s work was presented in most of the leading venues and festivals for dance all around the world for the past 25 years, danced by a strong and diverse group of long term collaborators. Parallel to his choreographic work, Gat designs the lighting to all of his works, making it an integral component of his creative process.
In recent years, Gat developed a photographic practice and has presented elaborate photographic installations alongside his stage work, through a series of photographs, dedicated to and inspired by specific pieces from his repertoire.
In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, Gat created “LOVETRAIN2020”, a work for 14 dancers to the music of Tears For Fears. The work has seen its premiere between two lockdowns early October, and received overwhelming response from audiences and critics alike.
Gat was associated artist to l’Arsenal - Cité Musicale, Metz from 2019 to 2023 where he created a work to Puccini’s opera “Tosca”: “Act II &III or The Unexpected Return of Heaven and Earth”.
The next creation, “Traüme”, was premiered at the Salzburg Easter Festival in april 2023.
His last work, “Freedom Sonata”, to Kanye West’s album “The life of Pablo” and the second movement of the last L.V. Beethoven’s piano sonata n°32, was created during he Festival de Marseille in June 2024.
Gat is regularly invited by companies and dance institutions for which he creates or transmits pieces: in France, he has collaborated with Paris Opera Ballet, Ballet du Rhin, Ballet National de Marseille, Ballet de Lorraine and Ballet de l'Opéra de Lyon. He is also guest choreographer of prestigious international companies: Sydney Dance Company, Tanztheater Bremen, Candoco Dance Company, Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, Los Angeles Dance Project, Czech National Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet, Polish National Ballet, Cedar Lake (NY), Vancouver Ballet British Columbia, Scottish Dance Theater, Staatsballett Berlin, the Landestheater Linz…
During his entire career, Gat has developed a rich methodological set of tools and an original pedagogical approach to dance making. He is regularly invited to teach and collaborate with the world's leading dance schools and institutions, and in parallel, offers through Emanuel Gat Dance regular options for young dancers and makers to immerse themselves in his practice, through internships, workshops and master classes.
© Agathe Poupeney
PRESS QUOTES
"Emanuel Gat masters his very personal art of choreography like a science whose boundaries he keeps pushing further and further beyond to translate ever-subtler meditations."
Le Figaro, Ariane Bavelier
"Emanuel Gat is as much a painter as an art director and a choreographer, all in one. He underlines that which may go unnoticed. […] Nothing religious about it, but undoubtedly, Emanuel Gat has a very close bond to what is Sacred.”
Libération, Marie-Christine Vernay
"Gat has reached such a level of serene mastery of his craftsmanship, that everything seems like a playful fantasy, gemlike, fueled by a sense of freedom creating a virtuous time-line.”
Gerard Mayen - Mouvement.net
"[…] The asset of Emanuel Gat, besides his energy, is obviously his talent: the extraordinary velocity of his dance; the permanent challenges that he gives himself and raises with sovereign elegance. When many others gargle with concepts before even knowing how to put one foot in front of the other, the rigor of Emanuel's beautiful, bewitching and thoughtful writing makes him a rarity: an authentic and brilliant choreographer, combined with a magnificent dancer."
Raphaël de Gubernatis, Le Nouvel Observateur
MORE PRESS
Works
2023
UTOPIA / Zfin Malta
TRÄUME / Emanuel Gat Dance
The Loop / AURA dance theater
2022
Kiryat Gat / inbal Dance Theater
2021
ACT II&III Or The Unexpected Return Of Heaven And Earth / Emanuel Gat Dance
SUZANNE / Inbal Dance Theater
2020
LOVETRAIN2020 / Emanuel Gat Dance
2019
YOOO!!! / Production déléguée Chaillot - Théâtre national de la Danse
The Circle / Scottish Dance Theatre
2018
Story Water / Emanuel Gat Dance et Ensemble Modern
WORKS / Emanuel Gat Dance
NEXT / ICK
Separate Knots / Czech National Ballet
2017
LOCK / Ballet British Columbia, Vancouver
TENWORKS (For Jean-Paul) / Emanuel Gat Dance et Ballet de l'Opera de Lyon
DUOS / Emanuel Gat Dance
2016
SUNNY / Emanuel Gat Dance
Trinity / Jin Xing Dance Theatre
2015
SACRE (2015 version) / Emanuel Gat Dance
2014
Plage Romantique / Emanuel Gat Dance
Ida? / Cedar Lake New York
Sunshine / Ballet de l'Opéra de Lyon
2013
Transposition #1 et #2 / Ballet de Lorraine
The Goldlandbergs / Emanuel Gat Dance
Corner Etudes / Emanuel Gat Dance
Danses de Cour / Emanuel Gat Dance
Morgan's Last Chug / Los Angeles Dance Project
Time Themes / Royal Swedish Ballet
2012
Organizing Demons / Ballet National de Marseille
2011
Brilliant Corners / Emanuel Gat Dance
Preludes & Fugues / Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève
2010
In Translation / Candoco Dance Company
Satisfying Musical Moments / Sydney Dance Company
Observation Action / Ballet du Rhin
The Revised and Updated Bremen Structures / Tanztheater Bremen
2009
Winter Variations / Emanuel Gat Dance
Hark! / Ballet de l'Opera National de Paris
2008
Silent Ballet / Emanuel Gat Dance
Windungen / Suresnes Cite Danses
2007
Through the Center / Emanuel Gat Dance
My Favorite Things / Emanuel Gat Dance
Trotz dem alten Drachen / Tanztheater Bremen
2006
K626 / Emanuel Gat Dance
2004
Winter Voyage / Emanuel Gat Dance
The Rite Of Spring / Emanuel Gat Dance
EMANUEL GAT, CHORÉGRAPHE HUMANISTE
Comme dans un laboratoire, le chorégraphe Emanuel Gat s’efforce, dans chacune de ses pièces, de réinventer les interactions entre ses danseurs et la composition d’ensemble de ses tableaux. II en résulte une écriture tout en intensité valorisant chacun de ses interprètes, comme dans Lovetrain2020, qui tourne en 2024 dans toute l’Europe.