The Jalisco dancer Martí Gutiérrez Rubí, who completed his two-year stay at the Zurich Junior Ballet, will join the Semperoper (Semper Opera) Ballet in Dresden, Germany, in August, after his successful time with the Swiss group, which earned him the Tanzpreis 2023-2024 Award, awarded to him by the public for his performance on stage.
The Tanzpreis der Freunde des Balletts Zurich award that I won this year is very nice, because it is given to you by the audience that comes to see us at the performances. Being chosen as the best dancer of the Junior Ballet is a great achievement because it means that I am on the right path.
expressed to The Day the 21-year-old interpreter.
The award, presented on 26 June, follows the Danse Suisse Award she received as a graduate student with the FFZ Bühnetänzer diploma with the highest average in the entire Swiss Federation. The Tanzpreis was also awarded to Inara Wheeler from the Junior company and Inna Bilash and Esteban Berlanga from the Zurich Ballet.
Regarding his experience at the Junior company, Martí Gutiérrez said that there are no words to describe everything he experienced. There are many lessons that I learned. I am very happy because I worked professionally and it is very different from doing it at school, where you have the attention of the teachers; being in a company makes you more independent in how you work, train and take care of yourself; although I was in the Junior, I had the opportunity to work with choreographers and dancers with whom I never imagined collaborating.
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The young dancer, who trained at the Fernando Alonso National Ballet School of Cuba and at the Ballettschule Theater in Basel, Switzerland, participated in important works such as Horizonte: WOLC, de Shaked Heller; Come Back, de Samantha Lynch; former by Vittoria Girelli, and Emergence y Angels’ Atlas, by Crystal Pite.
Also, in Night dreams, by Marcos Morau; Nijinsky, by Marco Goecke; The Nights, de Bronislava Nijinska; Nutcracker and Mouse King y Anna Karenina, by Christian Spuck, among others.
As a member of the Junior Company of Zurich, Martí also had the opportunity to create the choreography 91, which was part of the New Generation program.
About the creative process he shared: I challenged myself to create the concept and that took me a long time because I had to define what my vision was. I knew it would be in a contemporary neoclassical style, and it was difficult to have so much freedom in the concept, but I started to create movements and scenes.
She added that her choreography was inspired by conversations with her grandfather about music, films and artists from the 1930s.
I am interested in choreographic creation and I have always wanted to develop as a choreographer and I would like to do it when I am young, not wait to finish my career as a dancer. From now on I am interested in producing choreographies and it is something that I will continue to do.
the interpreter explained.
Gutiérrez said he is excited to work with the Semperoper Ballet in Dresden, under the direction of Kinsun Chan, who will begin his tenure at the head of the group in the 2024-2025 season. It will be a change for the company with Kinsun; in addition, this year it will be 200 years old and will have special programming.
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The dancer, originally from Zapopan, recalled that last February he auditioned for the Semperoper Ballet and it was choreographer Kinsun Chan who told him that he was interested in hiring him.
I made the right decision to join the Dresden Ballet because I am at the age to explore different groups, with new people. I don’t know anyone there, I have no friends or connections with teachers, it will be a complete change, and I will dedicate myself to dancing a lot and working with new choreographers.
The dancer said that after working with choreographers such as Christian Spuck and getting to know the works of Kinsun Chan, he is convinced that he likes to explore new movements.
I am interested in abstract pieces with different themes, which is why I am more inclined towards contemporary dance, modern dance, because it is not about telling a story with movements or telling a story with mime, it is simply about having movements and expressing an idea or concept with your body, which is why I go to the Semperoper; there is more variety in their repertoire.
Martí Gutiérrez will begin his new stage as a dancer at the Semper Opera on August 21, to make his way in Dresden.