Bio:
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (1976) first caught the public’s eye as a dancer when he won the Award for best Belgian Dance Solo in 1995, but the years to come would prove Cherkaoui’s talent and ambition reached far beyond the borders of one particular arts discipline. His experience at Alain Platel’s dance company Les Ballets C de la B allowed him to create his first choreography ‘Rien de rien’ in 2000, a piece that would immediately set the tone for the rest of his career in the performing arts: innovative and border-crossing, yet alluring to a varied audience. Drawing influences from various artists and cultures, and through an autodidact and ever curious attitude, Cherkaoui easily builds bridges on an artistic level as well as on a social level.
Seven years after the first show in Prague, 420PEOPLE are an established and sought after label both in the Czech Republic and abroad. To the Czech public they have mediated the work of important names of the international scene, from Kylián to Naharin, from Teshigawara to Van den Broek. The focal point of the company's activities remains the original creation of the founding tandem Václav Kuneš and Nataša Novotná, artists insisting on exceptional level of dance interpretation and professionalism. The seed of the idea to cooperate with Ann Van den Broek has been planted in the heads of 420PEOPLE on a 2008 Dans Click tour, one to feature Van den Broek's iconic piece Co(te)lette and Kuneš' duet Small Hour.