Christian Spuck has been choreographing for the Stuttgart Ballet since 1998. In June 2001 Artistic Director Reid Anderson promoted him to Choreographer in Residence.
Christian Spuck received his ballet education at the John Cranko School in Stuttgart. Before he joined the Stuttgart Ballet in 1995 he danced with Jan Lauwer’s Needcompany and with Anne Teresa de Keersmaker’s Company ROSAS. From 1994 until 1996 Christian Spuck was choreographic assistant to Marco Santi. Christian Spuck created his first choreography, the Pas de deux Duo/Towards The Night, in 1996 for the Stuttgart Noverre Society’s “Young Choreographers”. His choreographic debut was so successful that subsequently the Stuttgart Ballet as well as the Ballet of the German Opera Berlin both took the Pas de deux into their repertoire. In 1998 he created his first world premiere for the Stuttgart Ballet – Passacaglia.
Since then Christian Spuck has created 14 world premiers for the company in Stuttgart including two full-length ballets. His innate musicality, ingenious use of space and refined sense of staging as well as his ability to competently utilise a large cast of dancers, predestined him as a creator of evening length narrative ballets. His first full-length ballet, Lulu. A Monstre Tragedy, after Frank Wedekind, premiered in December 2003 in the Opera House Stuttgart and was an immediate success with the audience and critics. With this work he was able to successfully and contemporarily pursue the grand tradition of the full-length narrative ballet which John Cranko has founded at the Stuttgart Ballet.
In 2006 Christian Spuck was Resident Choreographer of Hubbard Street Dance 2, Chicago, for one season, and he received the German Dance Prize “Future” for Choreography. In the same year The Sandman, after E.T.A. Hoffmann, premiered in the Opera House Stuttgart. After Lulu. A Monstre Tragedy and The Children (2004, Aalto Ballet Theater Essen) which was nominated for the “Prix Benois de la Danse” in 2005, this was Spuck’s third full-length ballet.
In 2007 Don Q. premiered in the Playhouse Theatre Stuttgart. Since 1999 the choreographer has created world premiers for numerous renowned ballet companies in Europe and the USA, among them Morphing Games for Mauro Bigonzettis Aterballetto (1999), Adagio on dancers of the New York City Ballet (2000), this- for the Ballet of the State Opera Berlin (2003), The Restless for Hubbard Street Dance 2, Chicago (2005), and The Return of Ulysses for the Royal Ballet of Flanders (2006). This last production was invited to the Edinburgh International Festival in 2009.
Since 2005 Christian Spuck has also worked for music theatre and film. At the Theatre in Heidelberg he staged an opera for the first time in 2005: Berenice after a story of Edgar Allen Poe. In 2006 Christian Spuck presented “Marcia Haydée as Penelope”, a dance movie starring ballet legend Marcia Haydée and Robert Tewsley, which was broadcast on Franco-German TV channel ARTE. In 2009 he staged and choreographed with great success Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera Orphée et Euridice, a coproduction of the Stuttgart Ballet and the State Opera Stuttgart. His Falstaff production in January 2010 at the State Theater Wiesbaden was acclaimed by press and audience.
In April 2008 he created Leonce and Lena for the Aalto Ballet Theater in Essen and this production has been taken into the repertoire of Le Grands Ballet Canadiens de Montreal in the season 2009/10. One season later the Stuttgart Ballet also successfully presented it. The world premiere of Poppea//Poppea for Gauthier Dance, Playhouse Theater Stuttgart, has by the magazine Dance Europe been elected one of the ten most successfull dance productions in 2010 and won the German Theater Prize “Der Faust 2011”. For Poppea//Poppea Christian Spuck has also been awarded the Danza&Danza-Award 2012 as Best Choreographer. In September 2011 he choreographed Woyzeck for the Norwegian National Ballet.
His latest full-length ballet has been premiered in February 2012 at the Stuttgart Ballet. Das Fräulein von S., after a short novel by E.T.A. Hoffmann, is also his last choreography for the Stuttgart company as it’s resident choreographer.
Christian Spuck will become Artistic Director at the Zürcher Ballet at the beginning of the season 2012/13.