Marco Goecke

Marco Goecke, born in Wuppertal, completed his dance training at the Ballet Academy of the Heinz Bosl Foundation in Munich and at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. After graduating, his first engagements took him to the Berlin State Opera and the Hagen Theatre, where he created his first ballet in 2000. This was followed by several works for the Noverre Society with dancers from the Stuttgart Ballet and an invitation to the New York Choreographic Institute.

In the 2005/06 season he was appointed Choreographer in Residence of the Stuttgart Ballet, for which he created his first story ballet, »The Nutcracker«, that was later also filmed for the ZDFtheaterkanal. After winning the Prix Dom Pérignon in Hamburg, Marco Goecke received numerous commissions for international companies such as Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, the Norwegian National Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet Seattle, Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris, Staatsballett Berlin or Ballett am Rhein Düsseldorf Duisburg. From 2006 to 2012 he was also associated with the Scapino Ballet Rotterdam as a Choreographer in Residence. Since 2013/14 he has been Associate Choreographer of the Nederlands Dans Theater, and since January 2019 Artist in Residence at Gauthier Dance Stuttgart. In the 2019/20 season he took over the ballet direction of the Staatsballett Hannover, for which he most recently created the full-length world premiere »The Lover« based on the novel by Marguerite Duras.

Of Marco Goecke’s more than 60 works, many are in the repertoire of renowned companies such as the São Paulo Compañia de Dança, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, the National Ballet of Canada, Finnish National Ballet Helsinki, Ballet of the Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre Moscow, Ballet Zurich, Stuttgart Ballet, Ballet of the Gärtnerplatztheater Munich or Ballett am Rhein Düsseldorf Duisburg.

In 2005 Marco Goecke was awarded the Culture Prize of the State of Baden-Württemberg, followed by the Nijinsky Award Monte Carlo in 2006. In 2015 and again in 2021, the tanz magazine critics’ poll named him »Choreographer of the Year«, and in 2017 he received the Dutch Dance Prize Zwaan as well as the Danzadanza Prize in the category »Best Choreography«. The thus awarded piece »Nijinski«, created for Gauthier Dance in 2016, has since been shown with great success on tours worldwide. In 2018, a nomination for the Prix Benois de la Danse followed with the NDT production »We say dark things to each other«. In October 2022 he was awarded the »German Dance Prize«.

In the 2021/22 season Marco Goecke created »Fly Paper Bird«, a world premiere to music by Gustav Mahler, for the first time a piece for the Vienna State Ballet.