Ballet BC

Medhi Walerski became Artistic Director of Ballet BC in July 2020. He initially trained in Normandy before joining the Conservatoire Superieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris.

Walerski danced at the Paris Opera Ballet and the Ballet du Rhin before joining the Nederlands Dans Theater in 2001. For more than a decade at NDT, he was an integral part of the company. He participated in the creation of numerous new works and danced in the company’s repertoire. He was awarded the most important Dutch dance prize, VSCD Zwaan in 2013 for the most impressive dance performance.

He has worked closely alongside the creative forces of internationally established choreographers, creating and performing works by Jiří Kylián, William Forsythe, Mats Ek, Ohad Naharin, George Balanchine, Rudolf Nureyev, Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon, and many more.

Walerski’s professional choreographic debut was in 2008 for NDT 2, he has since then developed a close relation with NDT and Ballet BC, as well as Bern Ballet, Goteborg Ballet, the Ballet State of Georgia, StaatBallet Hannover, Staattheater Wiesbaden and Charlotte ballet.

He is regularly invited to lecture and give workshops at Dance Conservatories and Dance Festivals in the Netherlands, The United States, China and Italy.

In a choreographic career spanning three decades, Crystal Pite has created more than 50 works for dance companies in Canada and around the world. She is the founding artistic director of the Vancouver-based company Kidd Pivot, world-renowned for radical hybrids of dance and theatre that are assembled with a keen sense of wit and invention. Ms. Pite is known for works that courageously address such challenging and complex themes as trauma, addiction, conflict, consciousness, and mortality; her bold and original vision has earned her international acclaim and inspired an entire generation of dance artists. 

Crystal Pite was born in Terrace, BC, and grew up in Victoria. She began her dance career as a company member of Ballet British Columbia (Ballet BC), then William Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt. She made her choreographic debut in 1990 at Ballet BC, and since then has created works for such prominent companies as The Royal Ballet, The Paris Opera Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater, Cullberg Ballet, Ballett Frankfurt, The National Ballet of Canada, Ballets Jazz Montréal (resident choreographer 2001–04), and Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet. She has also collaborated with Electric Company Theatre and Robert Lepage, and is currently Associate Choreographer of Nederlands Dans Theater, Associate Dance Artist of Canada’s National Arts Centre, and Associate Artist of Sadler’s Wells in London.  

In 2002, she formed Kidd Pivot, a company that strives to distill and translate universal questions into artworks that connect us to deep and essential parts of humanity.  

“Running through all of my work is the question of what moves us,” she says. Kidd Pivot tours internationally with critically acclaimed works such as Betroffenheit and Revisor (both co-created with playwright Jonathon Young), The Tempest Replica, Dark Matters, Lost Action and The You Show. In 2008, Crystal Pite participated in the inaugural GGPAA Mentorship Program as the protégée of 2004 GGPAA laureate Veronica Tennant, former principal dancer of the National Ballet of Canada. 

Crystal Pite is a Member of the Order of Canada. Her other awards and honours include the Benois de la Danse, Canada Council Jacqueline Lemieux Prize, Grand Prix de la danse de Montréal, two UK Critics’ Circle Dance Awards, three Laurence Olivier Awards, and an honorary doctorate from Simon Fraser University. 

Sharon Eyal was born in Jerusalem. She danced with the Batsheva Dance Company between 1990-2008 and started choreographing within the company’s Batsheva Dancers Create project framework.

Eyal served as Associate Artistic Director for Batsheva between 2003-2004, and as a House Choreographer for the company between 2005-2012.

In 2005, Eyal started to collaborate with Gai Behar on her creations and the L-E-V company and different projects.

From 2009 Eyal created over 30 new creations for dance companies around the world such as the Nederland Dance Theatre; the Royal Swedish Ballet; GoteborgsOperans Danskompan, Sweden; Carte Blanche Dance of Norway, and more.

In 2013, Eyal launched L-E-V. In the past 8 years since L-E-V was founded, the company had more than 200 performances some in the most exclusive venues around the world such as The Joyce Theater – NYC; Jacob's Pillow - Becket, Massachusetts; Sadler's Wells - London, UK; The Montpellier Danse Festival – France; Edinburgh International Festival; Julidans – Amsterdam.

Gai Behar (Tel-Aviv, 1977) has been of wide influence of Tel Aviv’s live music, art and nightlife scenes from 1999 to 2005. He produced live music, underground artistic events and techno raves.

Between 1999-2005 Behar also curated and produced the events Man Without a Shirt in Tel Aviv. The event was co-curated by Uri Katzenstein, and among other included works by Ohad Naharin and Sharon Eyal. Gai produced the second round of Ohad Naharin’s Playback.

In October 2012, Eyal and Behar premiered Untitled Black in collaboration with the GöteborgsOperans Danskompani in Gothenburg, Sweden. In May 2013, they created the ethereal piece Sara for NDT 2. The same year, they launched their dance company L-E-V.

Since L-E-V was founded, the company had more than 180 performances some in the most exclusive venues around the world such as: The Joyce Theatre – NYC; Jacob’s Pillow – Becket, Massachusetts; Sadler’s Wells – London, UK ; The Montpellier Danse Festival – France; Julidans – Amsterdam.

Alongside their work with L-E-V, Eyal and Behar had also been commissioned to create for external companies: the Nederland Dance Theatre’s Sara (2013); Bedroom Folk (2015); Salt Womb (2016), Half-Life for the Royal Swedish Ballet and more.