Johan Inger

Johan Inger

Choreographer

Photo: Bengt Wanselius

The Swede Johan Inger (Stockholm, 1967) completed his dance training at the Royal Swedish Ballet School and at the National Ballet School in Canada. From 1985 to 1990 he danced with the Swedish Royal Ballet in Stockholm. Fascinated by the works of Kylián, Inger was convinced that a next step in his dance career should take him to Nederlands Dans Theater. In 1990 he joined NDT 1 and was a high-profile dancer in this company until 2002. Soon his talent for choreography was noticed.

Inger was asked in 1995 to make his first choreography for NDT 2. The resulting Mellantid marked his official debut as a choreographerand was immediately a resounding success.

Since his debut, Inger has made various works for Nederlands Dans Theater (like Sammanfall, Couple of Moments, Round Corners, Out of breath). For his ballets Dream Play and Walking Mad he received the Lucas Hoving Production Award in October 2001. Walking Mad- as it was later performed by Cullberg Ballet -was awarded the Danza & Danza’s Award 2005. Inger himself was nominated with Dutch prizes such as the Golden Theatre Dance Prize 2000 by the VSCD Dance Panel and the Merit Award 2002 from the Stichting Dansersfonds ’79. In 2013, Johan received the prestigious Carina Ari Award in Stockholm for his worldwide promotion of Swedish art and dance.

From 2003 to 2008 Inger was artistic leader of the Cullberg Ballet for which he made various choreographies. In 2008 Inger stopped as artistic leader for Cullberg Ballet so as to devote himself entirely to choreography.

Between 2009 and 2016, Johan Inger held the position as Associate Choreographer with Nederlands Dans Theater, creating for both companies (NDT 1 + NDT 2) regularly.

In May 2016, Johan received the Benois de la Danse prize for his work One on One, created for NDT 2 in 2015.

Inger’s work is on the repertoire of many leading dance companies all over the world. Examples of important choreographies that Inger created for other companies include Carmen, a full evening ballet with the Compaňia Nacional de Danza in Madrid which also won the Benois de la Danse in 2016; Peer Gynt (2017),  a full evening ballet with Basel Ballet; and the full evening Don Juan in 2020 for Aterballetto, for which he received the Danza I Danza Award.

His latest creation for NDT is IMPASSE (2020) for the NDT 2 dancers.

Watch the video playlist (YouTube)

IMPASSE (2020). Photo: Joris-Jan Bos
'I new then' (2012). Photo: Daisy Komen
'Dissolve in this' (2012). Photo: Joris-Jan Bos.