John Neumeier

John Neumeier was born in 1939 in Milwaukee (Wisconsin) in the USA, and studied in his home city, and in Chicago, Copenhagen and London. In 1963 John Cranko invited him to join the Stuttgart Ballet. Following four years as ballet director in Frankfurt am Main, where he made a notable impression with his new interpretations of well-known narrative ballets such as The Nutcracker and Romeo and Juliet, he moved in 1973 to the Hamburg Ballet; under his direction it has become one of Germany’s leading ballet companies.

John Neumeier’s greatest interest remains full-evening ballets, set to either symphonic or sacred music. He is committed to preserving the classical ballet tradition, while enriching it with contemporary forms of expression. Among his newest creations for Hamburg Ballet are Beethoven Project II, Hamlet 21, a new version of The Sleeping Beauty (2021) and Dona Nobis Pacem (2022). Along with his major engagements with the Hamburg Ballet he works regularly as a guest choreographer with prestigious ballet companies throughout the world.

In 1975 John Neumeier conceived the Hamburg Ballet Days as the conclusion and climax of the season. Three years later he founded the Ballet School of the Hamburg Ballet, whose graduates make up over 80 per cent of his company’s members. In 2011 he also founded Germany’s National Youth Ballet, a young, creative company that takes its productions to unusual places.

John Neumeier has won some of the most prestigious international awards: he holds the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, and has been appointed a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres and a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in France. The Inamori Foundation awarded him the Kyoto Prize in 2015 for services to the arts and philosophy. In 2016 he was awarded the Prix Benois de la Danse, and in 2017 he was awarded both the Prix de Lausanne and the Erich Fromm Prize. In 2019 he received the Friendship Award from the People’s Republic of China. In 2021 Queen Margrethe II of Denmark presented John Neumeier with the medal of merit Ingenio et arti, a personal award from the Danish Royal Family to outstanding contributors to the fields of the arts and sciences.

In 2006 he founded the John Neumeier Foundation, with the aim of preserving his oeuvre and making it available to the public.