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Benjamin Feliksdal (born 22 January 1940, in Den Helder) is a Dutch ballet dancer. He has danced as soloist and principal dancer with Het Nederlandse Ballet 1960, Het Nationale Ballet 1961/1971, and with the Royal Ballet of Flanders 1972/1973.
Feliksdal began his professional dance-training in 1955 in Amsterdam. He was taught classical ballet and modern dance by well-known Dutch pedagogues such as Florrie Rodrigo, Ineke Sluiter and Lucas Hoving. To finish his training he went to Rome in 1959 to study with the Dutch dancer and teacher Pieter van der Sloot and to the Rambert School of Ballet in London for special coaching. In September 1960 he joined Het Nederlands Ballet under the direction of Sonia Gaskell. One year later, in 1961, he joined the Dutch National Ballet, again with artistic leader Sonia Gaskell, and since 1965 with co-artistic leader Rudi van Dantzig. During his performing career with Het Nationale Ballet he was a principal dancer, partnering Yvonne Vendrig, Maria Bovet, Jessica Folkerts and Olga de Haas. He danced different roles with this company: Swan Lake , Von Rothbart; Romeo and Juliet , Tybaldo; Apollo , Apollo; La Bayadère , Solor; Le Prisonnier du Caucase , The Eagle; Les Présages ; Suite en Blanc ; Pas de Trois ; The Four Temperaments ; Symphony in C ; Monument for a Dead Boy ; The Green Table ; Jungle ; Night Island ; Designs with Strings ; Concerto Barocco ; The Miraculous Mandarin ; and Serenade .
After his dance career he specialised in methodic ballet teaching and developed as a modern jazz dance and tap teacher. He created a modern jazz dance technique based on the styles of Luigi, Mattox, and Giordano, integrating elements of jazz, ethnic, ballet, tap and modern dance. In 1975 he founded Benjamin's Modern Jazz Dance Center, European School of Jazz Dance and The Theater Dance Workshop in Amsterdam. As a former principal dancer of The Dutch National Ballet / The Royal Ballet of Flanders he became a dance-pioneer in professional modern jazz dance training in the Netherlands, East Germany 1980-1990, Soviet Union 1988-1991, Russia 1995, Bulgaria 1984-1996, Finland and in other West European countries. During the following 12 years he headed the professional training department and its allied Workshop Company. Both school and company proved to be challenging new developments in professional theater dance within the Netherlands.
1976-1996: As guest teacher Benjamin Feliksdal was invited by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Dance Theater of Harlem of New York, Gus Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago, the Bat-Dor Dance Company of Tel Aviv, the Kuopio Music and Dance Festival, Finland, the Internationale Tanzwerkstatt, Bonn, the Staatliche Balletschule, Berlin, the Palucca School of Dance, Dresden, the London Contemporary Dance School, the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts of Moscow, the Leningrad State Choreographic Institute, the Moscow Chamber Ballet, and Le Ballet Jazz de Montréal.
In 1990-1991 Feliksdal was engaged as artistic director in the frame work of EURO<26 program Young Europeans Dance in Glasgow Culture City of Europe 1990 UK, which hosted 150 young dancers and two choreographers from twelve European Countries.
As a choreographer he had assignments in the Netherlands with The Theater Dance Workshop Company, Amsterdam; with Ballet Arabesque, Sofia, Bulgaria; Friedrichstadt-Palast, Berlin BRD; Bat-Dor Company and School, Tel Aviv; and TV productions in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Bulgaria.
Feliksdal's teaching methods and techniques have been documented in several books:
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Rudi van Dantzig was a Dutch choreographer, company director, and writer. He was a pivotal figure in the rise to world renown of Dutch ballet in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Hans Arthur Gerard van Manen is a Dutch ballet dancer, choreographer and photographer.
Ben Stevenson OBE, is a former ballet dancer with Britain's Royal Ballet and English National Ballet, co-director of National Ballet of Washington, D.C. (1971–1974), artistic director of Chicago Ballet (1974-1975), artistic director of Houston Ballet (1976–2003), and artistic director of Texas Ballet Theater (2003–2022).
Gus Giordano, born August Thomas Giordano III, was an American jazz dancer, teacher, and choreographer. He performed on Broadway and in theater and television. Giordano taught jazz dance to thousands around the world. He founded the Gus Giordano Dance School in 1953, Gus Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago in 1963, created the First American Jazz Dance World Congress in 1990 and is the author of Anthology of American Jazz Dance (1975). He taught at institutions around the world including American Ballet Theatre, The American University of Paris, Duke University, Joffrey Ballet, and New York University. Giordano was one of the founders of theatrical or Broadway jazz dance styles, not to be confused with African American vernacular jazz styles that he drew upon.
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Toer van Schayk is a Dutch ballet dancer, choreographer, scenic and costume designer, painter, and sculptor. Along with Rudi van Dantzig and Hans van Manen, he is one of the creative triumvirate that brought the Dutch National Ballet to international prominence in the latter half of the twentieth century.
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Maria Austria was an Austro-Dutch photographer who is considered an important post-war photographer of the Netherlands, and was a theatre and documentary photographer. Her neorealistic, humanist photo reportage was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in 1953, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 1958, the Van Gogh Museum in 1975, and the Joods Historisch Museum in 2001.
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