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Douglas Becker is a choreographer and teacher working in many idioms, including ballet, contemporary dance, and improvisation throughout Europe and the United States. A founding member and principal dancer of the Frankfurt Ballet under the direction of acclaimed choreographer William Forsythe, he played a pivotal role in the creation of many of the choreographer’s early signature pieces and is one of a number of individuals around the world with the authority to remount his repertory. In the making of his own creations, Becker's choreography has been hailed as "innovative and energetic, very graphic and with purity of movement" (Swiss newspaper "24 Heures") and praised for its "delicate, intricate partnering and fleet movements" (The New York Times). Becker's collaborative process of choreographic development improvises upon and utilizes dancers' individual talents and characteristics.
Ballet is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread, highly technical form of dance with its own vocabulary based on French terminology. It has been globally influential and has defined the foundational techniques used in many other dance genres and cultures. Ballet has been taught in various schools around the world, which have historically incorporated their own cultures and as a result, the art has evolved in a number of distinct ways. See glossary of ballet.
Contemporary dance is a genre of dance performance that developed during the mid twentieth century and has since grown to become one of the dominant genres for formally trained dancers throughout the world, with particularly strong popularity in the U.S. and Europe. Although originally informed by and borrowing from classical, modern, and jazz styles, it has since come to incorporate elements from many styles of dance. Due to its technical similarities, it is often perceived to be closely related to modern dance, ballet, and other classical concert dance styles.
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Asia to the east, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. It comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia.
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Spanning three decades of choreographic investigation, Becker has received commissions from, among others Belgium’s Royal Flemish Theatre, Switzerland's Grand Théâtre de Genève, and Frances’ CCN Ballet de Lorraine. His improvisation installation, The Third Eye was constructed for the Musée de Grenoble. As a Flemish Government Arts Commission grant recipient, Becker directed and performed in the stage work, Brutal Elves in the Woods, for Brussels' arts laboratory Nadine. Becker has a broad resume in education working as guest faculty at P.A.R.T.S. School Brussels, The National Conservatories of Paris and Lyon, New York University, and the University of California Irvine among others. Douglas Becker, between 2007 and 2011, founded and curated the Hollins University/American Dance Festival Masters of Fine Arts international extended studies program, under the direction of Donna Faye Burchfield; introducing dance artists to new ways of imagining their research, advancing their abilities to realize their work in a larger context, and supporting their participation in dialogues that move across geographies as well as disciplines. In 2011/12 Douglas Becker began as artist-in- residence/visiting master lecturer at The University of the Arts Philadelphia. In 2012/13 is Douglas Becker artist-in-residence at University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
The University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) is a public coeducational arts conservatory in Winston-Salem, North Carolina that grants high school, undergraduate and graduate degrees. Founded in 1963 as the North Carolina School of the Arts by then-Governor Terry Sanford, it was the first public arts conservatory in the United States. Programs offered by the conservatory, including dance, drama and film, are widely recognized as some of the best programs across the world and consistently rank amongst the top. The school owns and operates the Stevens Center in Downtown Winston-Salem and is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
Ballet training for Becker began in Texas under Nathalia Krassovska and Stanley Hall, and continued in New York City with David Howard, Maggie Black and Marjorie Mussman. In 1978, he joined the Joffrey Ballet and worked with choreographic masters including Agnes de Mille, Choo San Goh and Jerome Robbins, after which he joined the National Ballet of Canada under the direction of Alexander Grant. He toured extensively with the company, performing with guest artists Rudolf Nureyev and Erik Bruhn. Joining the Dallas Ballet under Danish choreographer Fleming Flindt, Becker was then invited by William Forsythe to join the Frankfurt Ballet, where he also worked with Amanda Miller, Stephen Petronio, Susan Marshall and Jan Fabre. A native of Dallas, Texas, he makes his home in Brussels, Belgium.
The City of New York, usually called either New York City (NYC) or simply New York (NY), is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2018 population of 8,398,748 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles (784 km2), New York is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 19,979,477 people in its 2018 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 22,679,948 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, and exerts a significant impact upon commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. The city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.
Margaret "Maggie" Black was a ballet teacher who taught in New York City during the 1970s and 1980s. She coached dancers such as Martine Van Hamel, Kevin McKenzie, Natalia Makarova and Gelsey Kirkland. She developed a ballet technique based on anatomy. She stressed moving from a neutral spinal and pelvic alignment with weight evenly distributed throughout each foot. She amassed a large following of both ballet and modern dancers. Eventually she split her class into two, one for modern dancers and one for ballet dancers. Choreographers such as William Forsythe and Ohad Naharin attended her class.
