Don't put me in a Box

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui began his career as a choreographer in 1999 with Anonymous Society, a contemporary musical by Andrew Wale. Since then, he has created over 50 works, earning numerous awards, including two Olivier Awards, three titles of Best Choreographer of the Year from Tanz magazine (2008, 2011, 2017), and the Kairos Prize in 2009 for his artistic vision and pursuit of cultural dialogue.

After his early works with the Ballets C de la B and his residencies at Toneelhuis in Antwerp, he collaborated with renowned artists such as Akram Khan, Damien Jalet, Antony Gormley, Marina Abramović, Beyoncé, and Lady Gaga. He founded his own company, Eastman, and created landmark works including Sutra, Babel(words), Puz/zle, Boléro, Fractus V, and Medusa, exploring contemporary dance, opera, ballet, and musical productions.

Cherkaoui has also contributed to film and theater, choreographing films such as Girl by Lukas Dhont, Radioactive by Marjane Satrapi, and Cyrano by Joe Wright, as well as the Broadway musical Jagged Little Pill, for which he received a Tony Award nomination—the first Belgian to achieve this distinction.

Artistic Director of the Royal Ballet Flanders from 2015 to 2021, he has led the Ballet of the Grand Théâtre de Genève since the 2022–2023 season and is an associate artist at Sadler’s Wells (London) and the Théâtre National de Bretagne (Rennes).

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A graduate in journalism from the University of Grenoble, Romain Girard began his career in 2000 as a journalist, cameraman, and editor, first in Paris and then in New Delhi, where he produced numerous reports and documentaries for French-language channels such as FTV and Canal Plus. He broadened his scope by creating a variety of cross-disciplinary projects for the program Temps Présent, as well as collaborating with the UN, the ICRC, and Médecins Sans Frontières.