Marijn Rademaker

Biography

Marijn Rademaker was born in Nijmegen, Netherlands. He started his ballet training in Nijmegen and continued at the National Ballet Academy in Amsterdam, Artez in Arnhem, and completed his studies at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague in 2000. In 1999 he won the Grace Prize of Foundation Dansersfonds ’79 from Alexandra Radius and Han Ebbelaar.

In 2000, Rademaker became a member of the Stuttgart Ballet. In 2004 he was promoted to demi-soloist. In the 2006 season he was scheduled to be promoted to soloist, but after his highly successful debut as Armand in The Lady of the Camellias (John Neumeier), Reid Anderson promoted him immediately to principal dancer on stage after the performance.

His repertoire with the Stuttgart Ballet and the Dutch National Ballet included principal roles in the great classical ballets such as Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Don Quixote, Giselle, and La Sylphide. He also performed all the major John Cranko ballets in leading roles, including Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, Onegin and Lenski in Onegin, Petrucchio and Lucentio in The Taming of the Shrew, the Young Man in Poème de l’extase, E in Initials R.B.M.E., Don José in Carmen, and central roles in Hommage à Bolshoi, Légende, and Brouillards.

His repertoire further included principal roles in Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments, Emeralds, Violin Concerto, Theme and Variations, and Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, Jerome Robbins’s Dances at a Gathering and Afternoon of a Faun, Glen Tetley’s The Rite of Spring and Pierrot Lunaire, John Neumeier’s Lady of the Camellias, A Streetcar Named Desire, Fratres, and Jago in Othello, Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Song of the Earth and Requiem, William Forsythe’s The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude and Work Within Work, the Melody in Maurice Béjart’s Bolero, and Hans van Manen’s Live, Corps, Frank Bridge Variations, Two Pieces for HET, Sarcasm, On the Move, and Trois Gnossiennes. He also danced in Jiří Kylián’s No More Play, Forgotten Land, and Return to a Strange Land.

He worked with many choreographers creating new works, including Wayne McGregor (Eden|Eden, Yantra, Nautilus), Marco Goecke (Äffi, On Velvet), Mauro Bigonzetti (I Fratelli), and Christian Spuck (Songs, Lulu – eine Monstretragödie, Der Sandmann, Sleepers’ Chamber, Das Fräulein von S.), among others.

In 2006, he won the German Theatre Prize “Der Faust” in the category “Best Performer Dance.” In 2007, he received the German Dance Prize “Future.” In 2008 he was named several times in the category “Outstanding Dancer” in ballettanz magazine, especially for his compelling portrayal of Jago in Neumeier’s Othello. In 2009 he was awarded the international dance prize “Premio ApuliArte,” in 2012 he received the “Special Prize” from Foundation Dansersfonds ’79, in 2018 he was nominated for the “Prix Benois de la Danse,” and the same year he was awarded the “Grand Prix” at the Dance Open Festival in St. Petersburg.

Rademaker toured extensively with the Stuttgart Ballet around the world and guested with The Tokyo Ballet, The Hamburg Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, and the Zürich Ballet. He has been invited to numerous galas worldwide, including The World Ballet Festival in Tokyo, Men in Motion, Roberto Bolle and Friends, Malakhov’s Gift, Nijinsky Gala Hamburg, and Les Étoiles sous les Étoiles.

In January 2015 he joined Dutch National Ballet as a principal dancer, where he also worked as a ballet master with both the Junior Company and the main company. In 2016 he set Marco Goecke’s Äffi on the Bundesjugendballett in Hamburg. In 2018 he assisted world-renowned choreographer Edward Clug in the recreation of Sleeping Beauty Dreams, coaching Diana Vishneva and partnering her on stage.

That same year he choreographed 20 for the Bundesjugendballett in Hamburg, and in 2020 he created Rag for Dutch National Ballet soloist Timothy van Poucke, which premiered in Minsk. In April 2021, he directed his first dance film for Ballet Dortmund in cooperation with the Dortmund Philharmonic, the Academy for Theater and Digitality, and filmmaker Mathieu Gremillet. The work won “Best Feature” at the Inspire Dance Film Festival.

In 2023, he created his full-length ballet The Full Length, inspired by Edvard Munch’s The Scream, for the NRW Junior Company, and served as Artistic Adviser to Igone in Carré at the Royal Theatre in Amsterdam, where he created The Fool, Pertuition, and Pas de deux d’un Rêve with comedian Alex Klaasen. In 2024 his Transfigured Night (Schönberg) was adapted for the stage for the Bundesjugendballett John Neumeier in Munich and Leverkusen.

In 2024 he also toured throughout the Netherlands with Igone de Jongh’s production Renaissance. In 2025 he staged John Neumeier’s Lady of the Camellias with the Korean National Ballet.