Rudi Van Dantzig

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Dutch ballet dancer and choreographer, famed for his grace and great talent. From 1965 until his death he was the artistic co-leader of the Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam. In 1986 he wrote an autobiographical novel, Voor een verloren soldaat, about his love affair while a young boy with a Canadian soldier. The book became a great success and received several awards; an English translation, For a Lost Soldier, was published in 1991. In 1992 a Dutch film with the same title (English version: For a Lost Soldier(film)) was based on it. Van Dantzig also published a biography of the Dutch artist and resistance fighter Willem Arondeus in 2003. Rudi wrote a book about his friend Rudolf Nureyev. It is titled, "Remembering Nureyev: The Trail of a Comet." It was also translated into English. From the 1960s onward, van Dantzig choreographed more than fifty ballets, most of them on contemporary themes and most of them for his home company. Combining both classical and modern dance techniques, his ballets are expressionistic and fraught with symbolism, usually displaying psychological conflicts within a principal character. Basic themes are acceptance of life's imperfections and acceptance of death as the inevitable outcome of life's struggles. As a gay man with an active political sensibility, van Dantzig felt acutely the intolerance of his times, and this became a major theme in his ballets and his writings. He shared his life and career with his partner Toer van Schayk (born 1936), a dancer, set and costume designer, and choreographer with the Dutch National Ballet. He died in an Amsterdam hospital from lymphoma and male breast cancer on 19 January 2012, aged 78. Link to Wikipedia biography