In Puz/zle, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui returns in a more abstract fashion to the notion of the multiple and of multiplicity rooted in our thought processes and the added question of how things fit together to create a new and distinct identity (like a jigsaw puzzle). Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui is intrigued by why certain connections succeed in coming together as an organic whole while others fail. And whether they actually fail or if the failure lies in our perception of order and disorder. He aims then to question the seeming importance of order and linearity and to explore if there can be more than one way of solving a puzzle, of telling a tale, of living time.

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui questions and highlights the puzzles that lie behind human relations (emotional, intellectual, sexual), the morphology of the body, and intangibles like musical traditions inspired by and woven together from separate and multiple strands and traditions (so a liturgical composition sung in Spain might have Arabic roots, buried in the sands of time).

With A Filetta, the Corsican polyphonic group (his companions in In Memoriam and Apocrifu), the Lebanese singer Fadia Tomb El-Hage (also seen in Origine) and the Japanese percussionist and flautist Kazunari Abe by his side to dissect how a song, a composition can have various sources all at once, religious and secular, Christian and Muslim, and how traditions that we so easily name European or Oriental are never that definable and monolithic, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui salutes the delightful impurity that constitutes our lives and our planet.

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s debut as a choreographer was in 1999 with Andrew Wale’s contemporary musical, Anonymous Society. Since  then he has made over 50 full-fledged choreographic pieces and picked  up a slew of awards, including two Olivier Awards, three Ballet Tanz  awards for best choreographer (2008, 2011, 2017) and the Kairos Prize  (2009) for his artistic vision and his quest for intercultural  dialogue. 

Cherkaoui’s initial pieces were made at les ballets C de la B – Rien de Rien (2000), Foi (2003) and Tempus Fugit (2004). He undertook parallel projects that both expanded and consolidated his artistic vision; d’avant (2002) with longstanding artistic partner Damien Jalet at Sasha Waltz & Guests company and zero degrees (2005)  with Akram Khan. He has worked with a variety of theatres, opera houses  and ballet companies. From 2004–2009 Cherkaoui was based in Antwerp as  artist in residence at Toneelhuis, which produced Myth (2007) and Origine (2008).

In 2008 Cherkaoui premiered Sutra at  Sadler’s Wells. This award-winning collaboration with artist Antony  Gormley and the Shaolin monks continues to tour the world to great  critical acclaim. After his first commissioned piece in North America, Orbo Novo (Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet) and a series of duets such as Faun (which premiered at Sadler’s Wells as part of In the Spirit of Diaghilev) and Dunas with  flamenco danseuse María Pagés (both 2009), he launched his own company  Eastman, resident at DE SINGEL International Arts Centre (Antwerp).

Spring 2010 saw him reunited with choreographer Damien Jalet and Antony Gormley to make Babel(words) which won an Olivier. That same year he created Rein, a duet featuring Guro Nagelhus Schia and Vebjørn Sundby, as well as Play, a duet with Kuchipudi danseuse Shantala Shivalingappa and Bound, a duet for Shanell Winlock and Gregory Maqoma as part of Southern Bound Comfort. In 2011 he created TeZukA and Labyrinth (for the Dutch National Ballet). In 2012 he created Puz/zle, gaining him a second Olivier. That year he also collaborated with Joe Wright on his film Anna Karenina, for which Cherkaoui helmed the choreography.

2013 saw the premiere of 4D and 生长genesis (Eastman), Boléro (co-created with Damien Jalet and Marina Abramović, for the Paris Opera Ballet), and m¡longa (Sadler’s Wells). He reunited with Joe Wright to co-direct A Season in the Congo at The Young Vic. In 2014, he created Noetic for the GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, Mercy (from Solo for Two) for Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev, which they performed at the London Coliseum and he directed his first opera, Shell Shock, for La Monnaie, with music by Nicholas Lens and text by Nick Cave.

In 2015, Cherkaoui directed his first full-length theatre production Pluto  based on the award-winning manga series by Naoki Urasawa and Takashi  Nagasaki at Bunkamura in Tokyo, bringing the beloved manga character  Astro Boy to life on stage, and was movement director for Lyndsey  Turner's Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch at the Barbican Centre in London. He also made a trio Harbor Me commissioned by the L.A. Dance Project, and choreographed a new Firebird for Stuttgart Ballet. In the same year, Cherkaoui created a new production Fractus V for his company Eastman, in which he also performs.

Since 2015, Cherkaoui assumed the role of artistic director at the Royal Ballet Flanders, where he has created Fall (2015), Exhibition (2016) and Requiem  (2017). He combines this function with his title as artistic director  of Eastman and keeps creating new work along with the artistic entourage  of this company, for example Icon (2016) and Stoic (2018), completing his dance trilogy for GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, Session (2019) with Irish traditional dance-exponent Colin Dunne, Nomad (2019) and 3S (2020),  a suite of three solos for Kazutomi “Tsuki” Kozuki, Jean Michel  Sinisterra Munoz and Nicola Leahey commissioned by TorinoDanza Festival.  He directed the operas Les Indes galantes (2016) and Alceste (2019) for the Bayerische Staatsoper, Satyagraha (2017) for Theater Basel and Pelléas et Mélisande (2018) with Damien Jalet and Marina Abramović for Opera Vlaanderen. His most recent ballet commissions include Medusa (2019) with Natalia Osipova in the title role at The Royal Ballet in London, Exposure (2020) for the Paris Opera Ballet, and Laid in Earth (2020),  a piece for four dancers of English National Ballet. Between 2017 and  2021 he choreographed several feature films, including Lukas Dhont’s Girl and Marjane Satrapi’s Radioactive, but also the yet to be released Cyrano by Joe Wright and Rebel  by the Belgian-Moroccan directors duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah.  In 2019, Cherkaoui made his Broadway debut as choreographer for the  Alanis Morissette musical Jagged Little Pill,  directed by Diane Paulus and with a book by Diablo Cody. For this  production, he was nominated for a Tony Award in the category Best  Choreography. He is the first Belgian choreographer to be nominated in  this category. 

Starting from the season 2022-2023, Sidi Larbi  Cherkaoui will direct the Ballet of the Grand Théâtre de Genève. He is  also an associate artist at Sadler’s Wells, London and Théâtre National  de Bretagne, Rennes.

Source: Eastman⎜Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui

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