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Mats Ek

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Mats Ek
Rowan Rossi
Mats Ek essay

Mats Ek is a world renowned choreographer, known for his works adapting classic ballets into ground breaking, game changing modern works of art. Mats Ek was born in Malmo Sweden in 1945, son of the choreographer Brigit Cullberg and Ander Ek, a famous Swedish actor. The young Mats Ek did not particularly want to be a dancer, and he spent some years producing plays. Soon later Mats Ek trained in classical dance with Lillian Katrina and later with Donya Feuer in 1962. After discovering his newfound love for dance Mats Ek joined the Cullberg ballet in 1973. In 1982 Mats Ek created his greatest work, the reinterpretation of the classical ballet Giselle was seen as ground breaking and inspirational creating a new era in dance. Many things in Mats Ek’s life have contributed to his artistic work as a choreographer, some being social and political changes and early family life.

The revolution of dance was a major part in dance history and it greatly affected the way Mats Ek choreographed his dance works. The revolution of dance occurred in the 1950s to the 1970’s a time after world war 2 during Mats Ek’s upbringing, people were questioning old ways and coming up with new ideas “flower power” was a common used term during this time. Dance was something being innovated during this time, dancers and choreographers were moving away from strict ballet technique experimenting with new styles, costumes, scenery, creating some amazing abstract work. What dance actually is, was also largely debated and was debated weather any movement could be considered dance. Matts Ek’s use of disproportioned props, plain costumes, and abstract settings were all tools that Matts Ek used derived from this change in dance. This change is dance is shown in matts Ek’s Giselle, his style used in Giselle combines classical and contemporary movement, each group of dancers having slightly different styles underlines the differences between characters, an example of this

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