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Keso Dekker

Biography

Keso Dekker, born on the Dutch island of Ysselmonde, studied History of Art, Dutch, Classics and Literature before turning to painting. The American choreographer Eric Hampton gave him his first engagement in 1976 as a set and costume designer; shortly afterwards there began an intensive co-operation with Hans van Manen which has since resulted in more than 60 creations. To date, Keso Dekker has made some 400 set and costume designs for a wide range of theatre and dance artists in Europe and the USA, including the choreographers Renato Zanella (Wiener Staatsoper), Bernd Bienert (Zürcher Ballett), Nils Christe (Ballet de L‘Opéra de Paris), Heinz Spoerli (Ballett der Deutschen Oper am Rhein) and Martin Schläpfer (ballettmainz, Het Nationale Ballet Amsterdam and Ballett am Rhein). In 2002, Keso Dekker received the Dutch Design Award, as well as the Grand Dance Prize of the Netherlands for his contribution to the art. For the celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of Het Nationale Ballet Amsterdam he created a ballet marathon with nine world premieres, including pieces by Hans van Manen, Christopher Wheeldon and Alexei Ratmansky. In 2012, the American Ballet Theatre presented Ratmansky’s Symphony No. 9 in Dekker‘s costumes as the first part of a Shostakovich trilogy that was performed as a whole in 2013 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. For his redesign for Leonid Massine‘s Choreartium for the Bavarian State Ballet, he received the Taglioni – European Ballet Award for Best Designer in 2014. In addition, Keso Dekker has created TV programmes, led workshops, written books, designed indoor and outdoor spaces, and created exhibition architectures for La Mode (1986), The Art of Devotion 1300–1500 (1994), and KWAB. Dutch Design in the Age of Rembrandt (2018) at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. This season, his costume designs for Ratmansky's 24 Préludes are shown by the Wiener Staatsballet.