Press Release

Dancer Laureate Gregor Seyffert has received German Dance Award 2003

The Berlin Dancer-Laureate Gregor Seyffert have been received the German Dance Award 2003. 
The German dance award, i.e., Deutscher Tanzpreis, has been bestowed to outstanding personalities in international dance by the German federal association of dance education.
It is considered to be one of the most important national awards in the field of dancing in Germany.

The prize has been officially awarded during the festive occasion at the Aalto Theater in Essen on 22 March, 2003, in the course of which have appeared both the State Ballet School of Berlin and School for Acrobatic, as well as Gregor Seyffert & Compagnie, with their own contributions.

For further information / press reviews please contact www.DBfT.de.

20 years German Dance Award

prize winner’s 1983-2003

Ceremony of German Dance Award 2003
from left to right: Ulrich Roehm, president of the German Association of dance 
education, prize winner Gregor Seyffert, laudatory speech Gregor Gysi

Press Reviews

Dancing on the edge

NRZ, March 24, 2003

German dance award to Gregor Seyffert /Dance pedagogy association for the first time awards an active dance soloist

Essen. Gregor Seyffert is already a title hero on paper. He was made a Kammertänzer in 1999. In 1997, he received the Prix Benois, or, Oscar of the dance world, and in 2002 the German critics’ award. At 35, Seyffert is the first dancer in the 20 years of the German dance award’s existence to be bestowed with this honorary prize. It is awarded by the Berufsverband für Tanzpädagogik e.V., a professional association of dance teachers, which is seated in Essen. During the ceremony at the Aalto theatre on Saturday, Seyffert showed what he is on top of it: performer, acrobat, dance dervish and ‘the most exceptional dance personality of the present’. This he how the chairman of the dance teacher association ranked the Berlin-based dancer among his fellow award winners, who range from Pina Bausch and John Neumeier to Marcia Haydee.

An exceptionally gifted artist. Not just because every jump seems to be more breathtaking and powerful, each movement more virtuoso and expressive than by anyone else. Seyffert’s stage personae naturally possess each facet of human existence. Such as his God’s Clown, a vehement, half an hour solo alternating between emotional staggering and ecstatic self chastisement, which the Aalto audience enthusiastically cheered for minutes. The choreography, which he created together with his father, Dietmar Seyffert, shows their respect for the life and suffering of the former ‘dance god’, Vaslav Nijinsky. It is an example of how this dancer, who moves on physical and psychic edges, combines an extreme corporality with artistic expression.

‘You have built bridges and exceeded limits,’ Gregor Gysi lauded the wanderer between Swan lake and             Dr. Faustus. This freedom already appealed in East Germany, when Seyffert was a master student of today’s Aalto ballet director Martin Puttke and soon left the ballet school to dance as a soloist at Komische Oper. In 2000, he left the company in protest against the lack of future perspectives of this opera house and what was then a capital still rich in cultural attractions.

Presently, Seyffert independently takes care of his fate as the new director of the Staatliche Ballettschule Berlin and artistic director of his own company.

He already successfully appeared with Garcia’s highly acrobatic and deeply emotional choreography Landscape with Shadows in the accompanying programme of the Olympic Games in Atlanta.

With the male ballet Troy Game by Robert North, a Greek unorthodox mixture of antiquity and carnival in Rio, pretentious wrestling and lively pranks, the Berlin ballet school at the Aalto theatre finally showed the way into the new Seyffert era.

The 35-year-old dancer dedicated his prize to the civilian victims of the Iraqi war.

Martina Schumann

Germany finally has a ballet super star again

Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung

February 23, 2003

Pina Bausch and John Neumeier won it, and so did Maurice Béjart. However, never was the German dance award given to an artist who was able to show his gratitude through his bodily self, as it were. To Gregor Seyffert, it was an affair of honour to change his dinner jacket for a ballet costume at the Aalto theatre.

For two decades, the dance teachers’ association has been honouring personalities who have been of great service to dance in Germany. In doing so, it has always singled out lifeworks, which presupposes a certain age. Yet although Gregor Seyffert is only thirty five years old and therefore the youngest award winner, a lifework was praised in his case, too.

Germany looks for a superstar? There is one on the ballet stage which may not exactly be rich in exceptional talents. Seyffert presently is the German dancer having received the highest prises. He is considered to be the most outstanding dancer of his generation. The Berlin-based dancer does not like to hear of this. When talked to directly, he seems to be more concerned with artistic developments and ways to reach his audience than with decorations. ‘You fully abandon yourself to dancing,’ said Gregor Gysi in his witty laudatory speech.

The list of awards is impressive, though. In 1986, Seyffert won the ballet competition in Lausanne. In 1997 the Prix de Benois made him the first German to be the world’s  best dancer. His home town made him a Kammertänzer. In 2002, he received the German critics’ award. Seyffert does not only stand in limelight because of his acrobatic power of jumping. He is an artist looking for new paths. He also sees himself as an actor. He created stage designs and costumes, and worked for TV. In 1996, he founded his own company because he did no longer see a future for himself at Komische Oper, where he had danced as a soloist. Since 2002, he has also been the director of Staatliche Ballettschule Berlin.

Seyffert brought examples of his manifold activities to Essen. Students of the Berlin ballet school demonstrated the high level of their training. A top-class Seyffert showed in Juan Carlos Garcia’s choreography Landscape with Shadows, an organic blend of dance theatre and contemporary ballet, a nightmarish game of dependency and passion. And with the solo God’s Clown, a forty-minute homage to the exceptional dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, who suffered from schizophrenia, set to Strawinsky’s Sacre, he showed dance at the top of physical art.

By the way, Gregor Seyffert spontaneously dedicated the dance award to the guiltless victims of the Iraqi war. This, too, is an affair of honour to him.

By Michael Kohlstadt

Homage

As God’s Clown a Star

Sächsische Zeitung, March 28, 2003

Gregor Seyffert receives the 20th German Dance Award

A few days ago, Gregor Seyffert was the first active dancer to receive the German dance award. He received the award of the professional association of dance teachers in honour of his impressive successes as an interpreter and his appointment as the artistic director of the Staatliche Ballettschule Berlin. The prize has been awarded since 1983. Among its winners were Gret Palucca, Pina Bausch and John Neumeier.

Gregor Seyffert combines the sportive energy of a male dancer with virtuoso brilliance and a subtle role interpretation. The broad range of his dance skills, his velocity and expressionism are fascinating. ‘If more people danced like you we might probably have fewer wars in the world,’ Gregor Gysi congratulated the award winner in his laudatory speech at Essen’s Aalto theatre.

Gregor Seyffert was born in Berlin in 1967. He won the gold medal of the international ballet competition in Lausanne when he was still a student of the renowned Staatliche Ballettschule Berlin. In 1987, Tom Schilling engaged him as a solo dancer of Komische Oper.  In 1991, he was made a first soloist at this opera house. Gregor Seyffert danced God’s Clown in a choreography of his father, Dietmar Seyffert, as the German cultural contribution to the opening ceremony of the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996. In 1997, he was selected as the world’s best dancer by UNESCO, and in 1999, Berlin’s senate made him a Kammertänzer. Since the 2000/2001 season, he has worked as a free-lance dancer and director of his own ensemble, Gregor Seyffert & Compagnie.  In addition, he was made the artistic director of the Staatliche Ballettschule Berlin in March, 2002.

It seems as if he was predestined to becoming the artistic director of his former school. Still an active dancer, he knows the demands of the job market and is equally interested in a perfect physical and mental promotion of his students. ‘For each student to better understand why he has to suffer a classical training every day,’ Seyffert initiated a closer cooperation between internationally demanded choreographers and the school. ‘The stimulating effects of a performance can hardly be taught by a teacher in class. You can only experience it yourself on stage.’

Dashing students in ambitious projects

The furious first night of his Berlin students with the extremely difficult Troy Game by Robert North proved the success of his concept. The choreography The Birthday of the Infanta  by Birgit Scherzer will be shown for the first time by the school in the months to come. Gregor Seyffert pursues such projects despite Berlin’s terse financial budget, which implies massive cuts in spending and hiring freezes taking months.

The dance award encourages the Berliner Ballettschule in public to remain committed to its path despite financial shortages. Gregor Seyffert asked the country of Berlin to come up to its responsibility for culture. He dedicated the dance award to the civilian victims of the Iraqi war.

Robert Biskop

A time for praise

March, 23, 2003 Neue Ruhr/Rhein-Zeitung NRZ

Flowers and complimentary words: congratulations to the new winner of the dance award Gregor Seyffert from Ulrich Roehm (Berufsverband für Tanzpädagogik) and moderator Gregor Gysi

There he stood, a firm grouser unaccustomed to handing out compliments. Gregor Gysi was introduced as a “lawyer and publisher” in the German Dance Award program. The former Berlin senator of the Party of Democratic Socialism, who had resigned because he had not kept a separate record of his official and private Lufthansa air miles, had the opportunity to prove his skill in eloquent lobbying in favour of high-class culture. His introductory speech in honour of the winner of the 2003 German dance award with whom he shares his first name, didn’t hide his ability to fight when it comes to distributing money. ‘Give a decent sum to ballet,’ was Gysi’s message to German millionaires.

It is not known for sure how many former award winners were in the Aalto theatre audience on Saturday night. However, the remaining guests saw what sponsorship can bring about. The award, a much coveted honorary prize whose list of winners in the last two decades reads like a ‘Who is Who’ in international dancing.

Last weekend Kammertänzer Gregor Seyffert was the youngest award winner to be honoured by the Berufsverband für Tanzpädagogik e.V., a dance teachers association seated in Essen. It was a high profile evening, with moderator Gregor Gysi, the Staatliche Ballettschule Berlin and Berlin’s money troubled cultural senator Thomas Flierl, who was probably astonished when he heard mayor Norbert Kleine-Möllhoff describing the large variation in Essen’s dance scene. ‘If I didn’t already live in Berlin I would move to Essen,’ commented Gysi amusedly. Essen, the German word for eating fits well together with drinking and dancing.

Serious Thoughts from Essen

Oe, March 24, 2003, Stuttgarter Zeitung

Dance award gala with eloquent moderator Gregor Gysi

With introductory speeches and performances from students and soloists from the Staatliche Ballettschule Berlin, from which this year’s award winner Gregor Seyffert is the artistic director, the gala programme took its usual course. Although in contrast to previous events this time there was a more balanced mix of dance and speeches.

The former chairman of the Party of Democratic Socialism Gregor Gysi, who presently lives on private means did not only prove to be an affluent politician, but extremely well-versed in the arts to honour the award winner as an all round artist. Pointedly, wittily and not without self-irony he not only vehemently warned against cutting cultural budgets, which resulted in incalculable collateral damage in everyday life, but also pleaded for a committed lobbying against the politicians’ low appreciation of dance.

The speech of the dancer and choreographer Gregor Seyffert was even more serious. He directly referred to the world’s chaotic situation, which is a result of the wrongdoing of politicians and was clearly moved when he referred to the many victims and persecuted people all over the world. An artist totally rooted in the present time, who understands his artistic mission as a humane message transcending national frontiers and continents.

He shares this belief with Nijinsky, whom he embodied in his great solo as God’s Clown to Strawinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps after the break. An exceptional dancer like Nijinsky testing the limits of his art, yet thank God without loosing his sanity and control over his trained body. A hundred years past Nijinsky, Berlin’s dancer Gregor Seyffert is a torchbearer of his art like his predecessor.