Herrumbre

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The first collaboration of the Greek National Opera Ballet with the renowned Spanish choreographer Nacho Duato, is a fact. The choreographer with the unique sensitivity to the weaknesses of human nature guarantees a great dance performance about the rust of the soul, titled Herrumbre (Rust).

For Nacho Duato, the starting point for this ballet was a photograph of the US-American detention camp, Guantanamo, showing prisoners fallen on the ground like animals. In his choreography, Duato transforms the images of violence spread by the media into movements. His aim here is to raise awareness of a subject that we all should care about. Why? Because it is how we treat others that ultimately defines who we are ourselves.

The succession of impressive scenes, each more violent than the previous one, with people humiliated and terrified inside a cruel prison, constitutes Duato’s grand statement against all forms of terrorism.

The first collaboration of the Greek National Opera Ballet with the renowned Spanish choreographer Nacho Duato, is a fact. The choreographer with the unique sensitivity to the weaknesses of human nature guarantees a great dance performance about the rust of the soul, titled Herrumbre (Rust).

For Nacho Duato, the starting point for this ballet was a photograph of the US-American detention camp, Guantanamo, showing prisoners fallen on the ground like animals. In his choreography, Duato transforms the images of violence spread by the media into movements. His aim here is to raise awareness of a subject that we all should care about. Why? Because it is how we treat others that ultimately defines who we are ourselves.

The succession of impressive scenes, each more violent than the previous one, with people humiliated and terrified inside a cruel prison, constitutes Duato’s grand statement against all forms of terrorism.

Duato was born in Valencia in 1957 and studied at Rambert School in London and Maurice Béjart's Mudra School in Brussels. He completed his studies at Alvin Ailey's American Dance Centre in New York and began his career in 1980 with the famous Cullberg Ballet in Stockholm. He has been a dancer and a guest choreographer with the Netherlands Dans Theater for ten years. There, he presented his first choreography in 1983, at the urging of Jiří Kylián. He served for twenty consecutive years as Artistic Director of the National Ballet of Spain, turning it into one of the most sought-after Ballets worldwide for its quality and repertory. From 2011 until 2014 he directed the Mikhailovsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg. From 2014 until 2018 he served as the general and artistic director of the Berlin State Ballet (Staatsballett Berlin), while in 2019 he returned to his previous post at the Mikhailovsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg.

His choreographies have been performed by some of the most important dance companies throughout the world, such as Nederlands Dans Theater, American Ballet Theatre, The Australian Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Stuttgart Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Royal Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Martha Graham Dance Company.