Since his choreographic debut at the Noverre-Society Stuttgart, Marco Goecke's inventive and exceptional ballets have caused a nationwide stir and attracted international attention. In very few years the Wuppertal-born Goecke – since 2005 Choreographer in Residence of the Stuttgart Ballet – has presented a remarkable number of world premieres in Stuttgart and has choreographed for many renowned international companies.
Marco Goecke received his first ballet training at the age of fourteen. He continued his education at the Ballet Academy Cologne, at the Foundation Heinz Bosl Munich and at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague. After his graduation he danced with the State Opera Unter den Linden in Berlin and later at the Theater Hagen. His first choreography, Loch , he created at the Theater Hagen and presented it in the same year at the International Choreography Competition in Hanover.
Following an invitation of Fritz Höver, Marco Goecke gave his choreographic debut at the Stuttgart Noverre Society's "Young Choreographers" with Chicks . In the following years he choreographed Demigods (2002), Blushing (2003) and Ickyucky (2004) for the Noverre Society. Shortly after his debut Goecke's extraordinary ballets attracted international attention. In September 2002 he received an invitation of the Choreographic Institute New York to create a choreography on dancers of the New York City Ballet for the Diamond Project Workshop. Principal Dancer Peter Boal instantly noticed Goecke's visionary work and commissioned the young choreographer to create a solo for NYCB's Sean Suozzi: Mopey premiered in March 2004 at the Joyce Theatre, New York, and received major critical acclaim. In the same year Mopey was shown at the Jacob's Pillow Festival in Becket, Massachusetts and also at the Venice Dance Biennale. In November 2005 the Pacific Northwest Ballet, Seattle, took the solo into its repertoire.
In 2004 Marco Goecke received an invitation of very high personal value, exceeding any official award: Pina Bausch asked him to present two ballets – Blushing and Mopey – at her annual Dance Festival in Wuppertal. Blushing had already been a great succes with the audience and the critics the year before as it won the highly reputated Prix Dom Pérignon in Hamburg in 2003.
In 2005 Marco Goecke created his first commissioned work for the Stuttgart Ballet: Sweet Sweet Sweet premiered in February and was a remarkable success. The Ballet of the State Opera Hanover took it into its repertoire in the same year, so did the Donlon Dance Company at the State Theatre Saarbrücken in 2007 and the TanzTheaterMünchen at the State Theatre at the Gärtnerplatz, Munich, in 2008. After the enormous success of Sweet Sweet Sweet Marco Goecke was promoted to Choreographer in Residence of the Stuttgart Ballet in September 2005.
In June 2006 he presented his second ballet for the company: Viciouswishes premiered on occasion of the triple bill GOECKE / LEE / SPRADLING and showed again Goeckes "formidable originality" (Stuttgarter Nachrichten). In December of the same year followed his first full-length ballet for the Stuttgart Ballet: an extraordinary and highly acclaimed new interpretation of the ballet classic The Nutcracker . The full ballet was recorded by German television network ZDF/3sat and was broadcast Christmas 2007 on 3sat.
In 2008 Marco Goecke choreographed the polarising Alben , his fourth work for the Stuttgart Ballet, and on occasion of Ballet Director Reid Anderson's 60th birthday gala in April 2009 the solo Fancy Goods for Principal Dancer Friedemann Vogel. In June 2010, Marco Goecke will present his second full-lenght ballet for the Stuttgart Ballet: Orlando , after the novel by Virginia Woolf.
Three songs of Johnny Cash inspired Marco Goecke to create the powerful and moving solo Äffi for Principal Dancer Marijn Rademaker on occasion of a benefit gala in Holland. In December 2005 the Stuttgart Ballet audience experienced the masterpiece at the Stuttgart Ballet's annual Christmas Benefit Gala in the Opera House. Äffi made its way into the repertoire of the Stuttgart Ballet and also the Scapino Ballet Rotterdam and has since then been shown numerous times at national and international festivals: William Moore, Soloist with the Stuttgart Ballet, performed Äffi in 2006 at the Tanzplattform Germany in Stuttgart, at the Easter Dance Days in Hanover and the Ipswich Arts Festival in England as well as in 2007 at the III. Ludwigshafen Festival and at the 1. AidsDanceGala Munich at the State Theatre at the Gärtnerplatz. With the solo Marijn Rademaker won the renowned German dance award "Der Faust" in the category "Best Dance Performance" in 2006. In the same year Tadayoshi Kokeguchi from the Scapino Ballet Rotterdam also won with Äffi the Dutch dance award "Zwaan" at the Netherlands Dance Days in Maastricht.
Marco Goecke is closely connected to the Scapino Ballet Rotterdam. So far he has already created four world premieres for the company: Der Rest ist Schweigen, Bravo Charlie (since April 2009 also in the repertoire of the Stuttgart Ballet), Supernova and Pierrot Lunaire . In addition to Äffi, Blushing , Beautiful Freak and Ring Them Bells , Goecke's Nutcracker was also taken into the Scapino Ballet's repertoire. The Dutch audience and critics were equally enthusiastic about his dark avant-garde version of the ballet classic as the audience in Stuttgart.
Marco Goeckes extraordinary ballets are in the repertoire of further renowned companies. Goecke was invited by John Neumeier to create a new piece for his Hamburg Ballet on occasion of the Ballet Days Hamburg. Titled Beautiful Freak the ballet premiered in June 2005 and was hailed by critics as a masterpiece. For the Ballet of the State Theatre Braunschweig Goecke choreographed Alles , based on texts by Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann. Goecke created the ballets Sonett (2007), Suite Suite Suite (2008) and Le chant du rossignol (2009) for the Leipzig Ballet, Nichts (2008) for the Nederlands Dans Theater and Fur (2009) for the Norwegian National Ballet. For Les Ballets de Monte Carlo he created Whiteout (2008), choreographed his very own version of Le Spectre de la Rose (2009) on occasion of the 100th anniversary of Les Ballets Russes and presented the solo Tué (2009) in honour of Caroline Princess of Monaco.
In December 2006 Marco Goecke was awarded one of the most meaningful ballet awards: the Prix Nijinsky in the category "Upcoming Choreographer", which is awarded every other year in the course of the Monaco Dance Forum in Monte Carlo.