Talent on the Move 2026- choreographers and their works

Ed Wubbe (The Netherlands) has created his own genre over the past decades, blending dance with other disciplines such as circus and opera. In doing so, he pushes boundaries and creates a theatrical world with a raw, vibrant, and contemporary relevance.

Ed Wubbe trained at the Scapino Dance Academy in Amsterdam (1978–1984), after which he danced with the first junior group of Nederlands Dans Theater. From 1987 to 1990 he was resident choreographer at Introdans, and in 1990 he began working as a choreographer with Scapino Ballet. Two years later, he became artistic director of the company, which relocated in 1994 and continued under the name Scapino Ballet Rotterdam. To date, Ed Wubbe has created more than seventy dance works for Scapino, including TING! (2016). Students from Codarts Circus Arts also participated in this anniversary production, created to mark the company’s seventieth anniversary.

In 2017, Ed Wubbe received the Golden Swan Award for his significant contribution to Dutch dance. He was also appointed Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion. Previously, Single Manoeuvres and Nico were part of the Talent On The Move Tour programme.

After more than thirty years, Ed Wubbe stepped down as artistic director of Scapino. His impressive artistic achievements, his support of young talent, and his groundbreaking choreographies were honoured in 2024 with the Dance Pin (Dansspeld) during the Dutch Dance Days.

CREDITS – C’est-toi
Choreography: Ed Wubbe
Rehearsal direction: Marlies Achthoven
Music: Edith Piaf, Eddy Constantine
Costumes: Pamela Homoet
Lighting: Maarten van Dorp
Rehearsal assistants: Bryndis Brynjolfsdottir, Keith-Derrick Randolph
Premiere: Ballet Basel, 27 April 2021
Duration: 7:00

HURyCAN was founded in 2013 and is a performing arts project that places the communicative necessity of movement at its core, exploring its boundaries as well as its personal and emotional dimensions. The work offers a physical and sensory experience, created through play that is both naïve and progressive. The company’s creative research, which began in 2010, has been awarded numerous choreographic prizes in countries including Spain, Germany, France, Cuba, and the United States, and is performed worldwide.

Candelaria Antelo (Argentina) was born in Buenos Aires, where she began her training in contemporary dance. In 2004 she moved to England and graduated from the Northern School of Contemporary Dance. She subsequently worked in Spain with companies such as Derida Dance, Dani Pannullo, Mey-Ling Bisogno, and Lucio Baglivo. In 2010 she enrolled in the choreography programme at the Conservatorio Superior de Danza María de Ávila in Madrid, graduating in 2013. Together with Arthur Bernard Bazin, she founded the company HURyCAN. Their award-winning works—including Te Odiero, Je te haime, and ASUELTO—have been performed internationally. She also teaches internationally and leads workshops and masterclasses at festivals and dance institutions around the world.

Arthur Bernard Bazin (France) grew up in the suburbs of Paris and began his artistic path in theatre, later expanding into visual arts and juggling. In 2007 he moved to Madrid to further develop his theatrical and physical training, where he collaborated with companies such as Camille C. Hanson and La Phármaco. Since 2010 he has worked closely with choreographer Sharon Fridman and, together with Candelaria Antelo, founded the company HURyCAN. Their work combines choreography, theatre, and acrobatics, and is internationally recognised. Arthur also leads educational and creative projects worldwide, including collaborations with T.H.E Dance Company (Singapore), SUSS collective (Russia), Grupo RES (Argentina), and flamenco artists Eduardo Guerrero and Sara Jiménez.

CREDITS – Te Odiero
Choreography: HURyCAN (Candelaria Antelo & Arthur Bernard Bazin)
Music: Louis Armstrong – Basin Street Blues | Cinematic Orchestra – The Fear Theme | Kid Koala – Basin Street Blues
Costumes: HURyCAN, Asalia Khadjé
Lighting: HURyCAN, Maarten van Dorp
Rehearsal directors: Riccardo Zandona, Keith-Derrick Randolph
Duration: 11:00

Johan Inger (Sweden) joined Nederlands Dans Theater 1 in 1990 and was a leading dancer with the company until 2002. His choreographic debut in 1995, also with Nederlands Dans Theater, was highly promising and immediately earned him recognition. For his ballets Dream Play and Walking Mad, he received the Lucas Hoving Production Award in October 2001. Walking Mad was later also awarded the Danza & Danza Award 2005.

Johan left Nederlands Dans Theater in 2003 to take on the role of Artistic Director of Cullberg Ballet in Stockholm, where he created numerous works. Since 2008, he has worked as a freelance choreographer, creating for many companies worldwide, including GöteborgsOperan, Ballet Basel, Swedish National Ballet, Compañía Nacional de Danza, Aterballetto, Lyon Opera Ballet, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, Ballet BC and, of course, Nederlands Dans Theater, where he served as Associate Choreographer from 2009 to 2016.

In 2016, he was honoured with the Benois de la Danse Prize for Carmen (CND – Madrid) and One on One (NDT2), and with the Danza & Danza Award for Bliss, followed by another Danza & Danza Award in 2020 for Don Juan as Best Italian Production. Since 2016, alongside many new creations, Johan has also choreographed his own versions of narrative works such as Petrushka (Les Ballets de Monte Carlo) and full-length productions including Peer Gynt (Ballet Basel). In 2022, Johan Inger also became Artistic Director of Take Off Dance, a training programme for pre-professional dancers aged 18 to 24 in Seville.

Within the framework of the Talent on the Move 2026 programme, Yvan Dubreuil worked with dance students from Codarts on a fragment of Bliss.

The musical bliss conveyed by pianist Keith Jarrett during his Köln Concert inspired this choreography by Johan Inger. Created especially for Aterballetto, the ballet is filled with fragile and sensitive dance encounters, revealing how vulnerable happiness can be.

CREDITS – BLISS (fragment)
Choreography: Johan Inger
Rehearsal director & assistant: Yvan Dubreuil
Music: Keith Jarrett, The Köln Concert, Part I (excerpt)
Lighting design: adaptation by Loes Schakenbos
Costumes: adaptation of the original design by Asalia Khadjé
Rehearsal directors: Neel Verdoorn, Riccardo Zandona
Duration: 10:00

The full work was created for Aterballetto, premiered on 23 March 2016 at Teatro Comunale Luciano Pavarotti, Modena, Italy.

Manuel Kiros Paolini (Italy) is a freelance dancer and choreographer. He moved to the Netherlands to study at the Rotterdam Dance Academy, where he graduated in 2016 after completing an internship with Club Guy & Roni.

As a dancer, he has worked with, among others, Maura Morales, MiR Dance Company, Alexandra Pirici, Fernando Melo, and Alistair Macindoe. Since 2018, Manuel has been developing his own work as a maker, creating performances that combine dance and theatre with socially relevant narratives and a punk spirit. Some of his own creations include Through The Valley (winner of the Spritz Award by Silbersee), SuckerPunch, Ode to Destruction, and All About Us. He also collaborates as a choreographer with companies such as Firma Mes, KASKO, and Nic Bruckman.

Castles of Glass emerged from a collective brainstorming process among the artists involved, with the themes of power and control at its core. Through movement, ideas such as obedience versus self-expression, discipline over the body, authority over others, competition versus cooperation, hierarchies, and power relations between genders were explored. The choreography unfolds as a physical journey through these reflections, posing the question of which structures should be upheld and which should be dismantled.

CREDITS - Castles of Glass
Concept and choreography: Manuel Kiros Paolini, in collaboration with the dancers
Assistant: Riccardo Zandona
Music: Jonathan Bonny
Text: Ursula Le Guin, Judith Butler, Peter Handke, adapted by Manuel Kiros Paolini
Costumes: Asalia Khadjé
Rehearsal assistants: Riccardo Zandona, Neel Verdoorn
Duration: 10:00

Niek Wagenaar (The Netherlands) is a contemporary dancer and choreographer from Amsterdam. While studying at the Amsterdam University of the Arts (Urban Contemporary Dance), he joined the Hofesh Shechter Company in London. After graduating, he continued working with the company while also laying the foundations for his own movement practice. His work is fluid and organic, sensual yet powerful, rhythmically charged, and rich in physical sensation and imagery. Deeply rooted in contemporary society, Niek addresses major themes in a personal and intimate way. Through a sensitive movement language, his work tells recognisable stories based on universal emotions.

His contemporary dance initiative, Niek Wagenaar’s Nymphs, premiered in the spring of 2022 with its first work, Nymphs, which won awards both nationally and internationally. His second work, After All (2023), also received critical acclaim. Slipping Under, created for Conny Janssen Danst, toured De Parade festival last summer, and his new production Sabbath received four stars from de Volkskrant.

Goodbye Garden, a brand-new short work, was developed by Niek in collaboration with students from Codarts Rotterdam. Inspired by the symbolic meaning of the Lovers-card from the mystical tarot deck, Goodbye Garden explores the tensions between love and hate, trust and betrayal, unity and egoism.

In a physically demanding tour de force, Goodbye Garden exposes the consequences of polarisation and shows how these opposing forces can unravel the fabric of a community. Reflecting the current zeitgeist, the piece follows six individuals in a contemporary Garden of Eden—once a harmonious paradise that now threatens to disintegrate. What happens when a fragile society, reminiscent of this idealised garden, loses its sense of community and falls apart?

CREDITS - Goodbye Garden
Choreography: Niek Wagenaar
Music: Nicolas Jaar - Garden of Eden | Against All Logic - Faith
Costumes: Niek Wagenaar, Asalia Khadjé
Lighting: Niek Wagenaar, Maarten van Dorp
Rehearsal assistants: Sun Hee Dieben, Riccardo Zandona
Duration: 10:00

Rutkay Özpınar (Turkish/Dutch) is a choreographer and dancer and, among other roles, a resident choreographer at Korzo in The Hague. In 2019, his work took a major turn when he began a research project focused on Turkish folk dance, allowing it to influence his movement language. He explored styles such as belly dance and halay. As Rutkay’s work developed, he began blending elements of modern dance, classical ballet, hip-hop, and Turkish folk dance into an authentic and distinctive movement vocabulary.

Rutkay is fascinated, among other things, by the cadence of the body responding to music. It is a state of obsession that liberates the soul, allowing it to express itself freely. He approaches his work by using the struggle to find calm in today’s world as a central theme. His aim is to transport the audience to another world, away from everyday reality, where everyone becomes part of the rhythm—both the dancers and the audience.

Rutkay has created numerous works for Korzo and has collaborated regularly with Introdans. Throughout his career, he has been nominated for awards such as the Piket Art Prizes (2014) and the Dutch Dance Audience Award in the category Best Dancer (2013 & 2014). In 2016, he won the BNG Bank Awards with his piece Grip (a Korzo production). In January 2023, his first full-length production Work Line premiered and toured throughout the Netherlands. Last year, three of his creations were presented in New York during the Battery Dance Festival. Rutkay strives to create work for many other dance companies.

CREDITS - Between Two Points
Choreography: Rutkay Özpınar
Music: 3Phaz -Phase 5
Costume design: Asalia Khadjé
Lighting design: Maarten van Dorp
Rehearsal assistants: Neel Verdoorn, Bryndís Brynsdóttir
Duration: 10:00

Stephen Shropshire (United States), a freelance choreographer, graduated from The Juilliard School in New York. He also completed a master’s degree in Arts, Culture, and Heritage at Maastricht University. From 1994 to 1999, Shropshire danced with the American Repertory Ballet. In 1999, he joined Galili Dance in Groningen, for which he created several dance works.

In 2005, Shropshire created his first full-length work, and in the 2005–2006 season, he collaborated with the Icelandic City Theater and the Icelandic Dance Company on a new production of Carmen. From 2009 to 2012, Shropshire served as Artistic Director and choreographer of NND (Noord Nederlandse Dans). Commissioned by Holland Dance Festival, he has created works for the New Zealand Dance Company. Specifically for Codarts, he created Falfurious, Lamento Della Ninfa, and A Golden Pas de Deux.

This season, the previously performed Lamento Della Ninfa (an adaptation of material from the 2012 production Cinematic) and A Sentimental Waltz are featured in the Talent On The Move Tour 26.

CREDITS – Lamento Della Ninfa
Choreography: Stephen Shropshire
Music: Ane Brun – Oh Love
Costumes: Stephen Shropshire
Lighting design: Stephen Shropshire
Rehearsal assistants: Riccardo Zandona, Keith-Derrick Randolph
Duration: 5:00

CREDITS – A Sentimental Waltz
Choreography: Stephen Shropshire
Music: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Valse Sentimentale
Costumes: Stephen Shropshire
Lighting design: Stephen Shropshire
Rehearsal assistants: Bryndís Brynjolfsdóttir, Keith-Derrick Randolph
Duration: 4:30

Thomas van der Linden (The Netherlands) is an ambitious young choreographer with a strong artistic vision. He graduated in 2013 from the vocational dance program (Uitvoerend Danser) in Arnhem. He began his career at Introdans, where he further developed his classical dance skills. He then participated in various projects both nationally and internationally, working with different dance companies and choreographers.

In recent years, Thomas has developed his own signature as a creator, focusing on physical expression and a personal, recognisable movement language. He now fully dedicates himself to creating choreographies in which his style and vision are central.

Thomas choreographs annually for several dance academies in the Netherlands, actively contributing to the development of young dance talent. In 2024, he created Where Silence Becomes a Voice for the Delattre Dance Company in Mainz, and in 2025 Elusive for Codarts Lyceum. His latest creation, The Fifth Scent, is featured in the Talent On The Move Tour 26.

The Fifth Scent is a choreography that originated in Iceland, where he met an artist who brought scents to life. The fifth scent in particular captivated him - scent that symbolizes an ending, yet simultaneously a new beginning. One movement may appear familiar, yet is always different. The Fifth Scent explores individual uniqueness in an imagined space, where the personal and the intangible meet.

"A moment that fades, yet leaves its trace in those who witness it."

CREDITS - The Fifth Scent
Choreography: Thomas van der Linden
Music: Thomas Fauc
Costumes: Asalia Khadjé
Lighting design: Maarten van Dorp
Rehearsal assistants: Neel Verdoorn, Bryndís Brynjolfsdóttir
Duration: 10:00

Tú Hoàng (Vietnam, Netherlands) is a choreographer and movement artist, known for his dynamic fusion of classical and contemporary dance techniques, urban styles, martial arts, and philosophical depth. With roots in Hanoi and a career spanning Europe - from ballet companies in Germany to the contemporary stage of Conny Janssen Danst -Tú has established himself as one of the most versatile and original voices in European dance.

His work is influenced equally by Taoist philosophy and Tai Chi as by internet and club culture, navigating the intersection of East and West, body and mind, intuition and control. Through a highly physical, detailed movement style, Hoàng channels personal and cultural mythologies alongside collective energies. Each work, developed in close collaboration with dancers, musicians, and other artistic co-creators, becomes a playground for exploring rhythm, energy, emotion, and shared creative power.

By “hacking” established movement systems, Tú Hoàng forges vocabularies that remain both fluid and complex, engaging both body and mind. At the same time, he continues to refine his Framework Method—a movement coaching practice that seeks maximum impact with minimal effort, using breath, intention, and precision.

He is currently a House Maker at Korzo Theatre and involved in multiple international productions, including commissions from Of Curious Nature, Ballett Chemnitz, the American Dance Festival, and Conny Janssen Danst. His works have won awards at the International Choreography Competition Hannover and MASDANZA, and are increasingly recognized for their kinetic power and seamless integration of diverse movement forms.

CREDITS - Trial
Choreography: Tú Hoàng
Music: Original composition by Loscil
Costumes: Tú Hoàng
Lighting: Tú Hoàng
Rehearsal assistants: Sun Hee Dieben, Bryndís Brynsdóttir
Duration: 5:30

Sir Wayne McGregor CBE (United Kingdom) is a highly acclaimed British choreographer and director, internationally renowned for his groundbreaking innovations in performance that have radically redefined dance in the modern era.

Over his 30-year career, McGregor has directed and choreographed more than 160 works, including over 40 works for Company Wayne McGregor, which he founded in 1993, and more than 20 works for The Royal Ballet, where he has been Resident Choreographer since 2006. His works are part of the repertoire of the world’s leading dance companies.

In 2021, McGregor was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Prix de Lausanne; in 2023, he received an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art. Since 2021, McGregor has served as Director of Dance for the prestigious Venice Biennale, and in 2022 he choreographed the groundbreaking ABBA Voyage. In 2011, he was awarded a CBE for his services to dance, and in 2024 His Majesty the King appointed Wayne McGregor a Knight.

Sir Wayne McGregor is the Artistic Director of Studio Wayne McGregor, a registered charity based in London that acts as a creative nexus, pushing the boundaries of physical intelligence through dance, technology, and collaboration.

CREDITS “Studio Wayne McGregor’s FAR (excerpt), performed by Codarts”
Concept, direction and choreography: Wayne McGregor
Original Music: Giacomelli - Sposa son disprezzata, performed by Cecilia Bartoli
Costume design taken from the original by Moritz Junge
Lighting design taken from the original by Lucy Carter
Staged on Codarts by: Davide di Pretoro

Codarts lighting and theatre technology: Maarten van Dorp
Codarts costume realisation: Asalia Khadjé
Codarts rehearsal assistants: Sun Hee Dieben, Riccardo Zandona

CO-PRODUCED BY SADLER’S WELLS, LONDON, UK AND PEAK PERFORMANCES @ MONTCLAIR 
STATE UNIVERSITY, MONTCLAIR, USA AND IS MADE POSSIBLE IN PART BY A GRANT FROM THE 
ASSOCIATION OF PERFORMING ARTS PRESENTERS CREATIVE CAMPUS INNOVATIONS GRANT 
PROGRAM, FUNDED BY THE DORIS DUKE CHARITABLE FOUNDATION.
CO -COMMISSIONED BY MAISON DE LA DANSE, LYON, FR; FONDAZIONE | TEATRI, REGGIO EMILIA, 
IT; BELGRADE DANCE FESTIVAL, BELGRADE, SE; BELFAST FESTIVAL, BELFAST, UK; BRIGHTON 
DOME, BRIGHTON, UK; LABAN THEATRE, LONDON, UK AND DANCEEAST, IPSWICH, UK