Angelin Preljocaj was born in France and began studying classical ballet before turning to contemporary dance, which he studied with Karin Waehner, Zena Rommett, Merce Cunningham, and later Viola Farber and Quentin Rouillier. He then joined Dominique Bagouet before founding his own company in December 1984.
Since his beginnings, he has created 62 choreographic works, ranging from solo to larger formations including Romeo & Juliet, Snow White, Swan Lake …. He likes to alternate large narrative ballets with more abstract pieces like Empty moves, Still Life, Deleuze / Hendrix …
Angelin Preljocaj collaborates regularly with other artists in various fields such as music (Goran Vejvoda, Air, Laurent Garnier, Granular Synthesis, Karlheinz Stockhausen), visual arts (Subodh Gupta, Adel Abdessemed), design (Constance Guisset), fashion (Jean Paul Gaultier, Azzedine Alaïa), drawing (Enki Bilal) and literature (Pascal Quignard, Laurent Mauvignier), and animation movies (Boris Labbé) …
His productions are now part of the repertoire of many companies, many of which also commission original production from him (New York City Ballet, Staatsoper Berlin, Paris Opera Ballet…). Angelin Preljocaj has received numerous awards, including the “Benois de la danse” in 1995, the “Bessie Award” in 1997, “Les Victoires de la musique” in 1997, the “Globe de Cristal” for Snow White in 2009 and the “Samuel H. Scripps Price” in 2014. He has directed several short films and films featuring his choreography. His first feature film, “Polina, danser sa vie”, directed with Valérie Müller and adapted from the comic strip by Bastien Vivès, was released in 2016. In 2019 he was appointed to the Academy of Fine Arts in the new « choreography » section.
After Swan Lake in 2020 and Deleuze / Hendrix in 2021, he will choreograph and direct Lully’s opera Atys for the Grand Théâtre de Genève in 2022. At the same time, he created a short choreography for the “Danse Europe!” application, a participatory project open to all. For Dior, he created the choreography and the film Roman Night with the dancers of the Rome Opera Ballet. He also participated in the television series Irma Vep by Olivier Assayas, as an actor and choreographer. In 2022, he created Mythologies with original music by ex-Daft Punk Thomas Bangalter at the Opéra National de Bordeaux. In 2023 he created Birthday Party for senior performers at the Théâtre National de Chaillot, commissioned by Aterballetto. Then Torpeur at the Montpellier Dance Festival in June 2023. Requiem(s) has been created in May 2024 at Grand Théâtre de Provence. The same year, he was appointed Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters.
In April 2025, he has presented his new work LICHT at the Théâtre de la Ville – Sarah Bernhardt in Paris, preceded by HELIKOPTER and received the prestigious Léonide Massine Prize at Positano in Italy.
The Ballet Preljocaj now has 30 permanent dancers and performs an average of 120 dates a year throughout the world.
Photo Julien Bengel
