Hans van Manen †
Hans van Manen (1932–2025†) was a master of simplicity. The greatest choreographer our country has ever known, he created an oeuvre of more than 120 works and was not only the most productive Dutch choreographer, but also the most consistent. His work has a clear and unmistakable signature: lucid, structured, and precise – qualities that earned him the nickname “the Mondrian of dance.” In his work, “less” is always “more.” And although Van Manen himself liked to say that “dance expresses nothing but dance,” his ballets do in fact speak about something. They are about people, about human relationships. Within all that apparent simplicity, Van Manen was able to evoke a whole world of emotion with a single glance or a single gesture of the hand.
Ballet lessons from Sonia Gaskell
At the age of seven Van Manen was already dancing for himself, but he had no idea about how or where one could become a dancer: to him the circus seemed the most likely place. Then in 1946 the fascinating world of dance came a step closer when he became a pupil of the make-up artist and stage hairdresser Herman Michels. Van Manen then received his first ballet lessons from Sonia Gaskell, who recruited him for her group Ballet Recital in 1951. A year later he moved to the Ballet of the Netherlands Opera, where in 1957 he made his debut as choreographer with the work Feestgericht, which received the State Prize for Choreography. Van Manen also had a brief engagement at Roland Petit’s Ballets de Paris. But in 1960 he returned to the Netherlands when he was asked to start work as a dancer and choreographer at the recently formed Nederlands Dans Theater. A year later he was also appointed as artistic director of this company.
Over 20 Van Manen works on Introdans repertoire
Over the past decades, Van Manen worked alternately with Nederlands Dans Theater and Het Nationale Ballet. At the latter company, he was a resident choreographer from 2005 until his death. Introdans, as the third company in the Netherlands, also holds an extensive Van Manen repertoire, now consisting of more than twenty choreographies. Many of his ballets are particularly well suited for young audiences. Since 2000, Introdans has presented several Van Manen programmes. The most recent one, the family performance HOERA VOOR HANS, was presented in 2017 especially to mark the master choreographer’s eighty fifth birthday.
Awards
Looking abroad, Van Manen’s work has been performed by over fifty companies, including the Stuttgarter Ballett, Bayerisches Staatsballett München, the Ballett der Deutschen Oper am Rhein, Wiener Staatsballett, Ballet Zurich, the English Royal Ballet, San Francisco Ballet and The National Ballet of Canada. In recognition of his major significance to dance Van Manen has received many Dutch and foreign awards, including the Sonia Gaskell Award, the Choreography Award of the Association of Theatre and Concert Venue Directors, the Deutsche Tanzpreis, the Music Award of the City of Duisburg, the Erasmus Prize and the Benois de la Danse Life Time Achievement Award. In 2007 he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the Netherlands Lion, a royal distinction for ‘highly exceptional services’.
In 2017, Hans van Manen was appointed Commandeur des Arts et Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture, this being France’s highest possible state honour in the field of arts and literature. In addition to his work as a choreographer, Van Manen also spent ten active years as a photographer. His work has been published in book form and exhibited in the Netherlands and abroad.
Passing
On 17 December 2025, Hans van Manen passed away. With his death, we lost one of the greatest choreographers the art of dance has ever known. Hans van Manen was a brilliant source of inspiration, a sharp minded artist, and a maker who permanently changed dance, in the Netherlands and far beyond. His work is praised for its clarity, musicality, and human strength, and continues to touch generations of dancers and audiences.
We are deeply grateful for everything Hans van Manen has meant to our company. The collaboration with Introdans began in the 1990s with the ballet Ajakaboembie (1995) and grew into a rich artistic relationship. Over the years, many iconic works became part of our repertoire, including Black Cake, Polish Pieces, Squares, In the Future, Compositie, In and Out, and Andante.
By restaging these ballets, we continue to give new life to Hans van Manen’s oeuvre. His work remains in motion, carried forward by new generations of dancers who pass on his language, precision, and expressive power. The charismatic presence of Hans van Manen in the studio, his sharp eye, his humour, and his flawless sense of timing will be deeply missed by many.
His legacy lives on on stage and in everything he has left behind within the art of dance. We cherish his work and will continue to perform it with pride and dedication.
