User:Artists of the World/Sandbox

Baris was born in 1975, in Istanbul, Turkey. As a child, he set his sights on a life as a pianist while his twin sister imagined herself a ballerina. After failing their respective auditions, the two swapped professions: she ended up enjoying success as a singer in her homeland while he embarked on a remarkable international career as a ballet dancer.

At the age of 10, Baris began his dance education and training at the National Ballet School of Istanbul, directed by Cem Ertekin. During his studies, he made his galvanizing debut performance in L’après-midi d’un faune and became a member of the Cagdas Ballet Company. At 14, Baris had a dream: to dance for the great ballet companies of Vienna and New York. By a stroke of good fortune, he met dancer Nilay Yesiltepe in Istanbul, who had just arrived form the Opéra national de Paris where she performed in Blue Bird alongside Rudolf Nureyev. After seeing Baris dance, she conspired to make his dreams a reality. With Nilay’s help, Baris landed an audition in Germany and secured the funding he needed for his stint abroad through sponsors Ardic Gursel of The Marmara Hotel and Nuray Atabay. In Stuttgart, Baris studied at the John Cranko School under the tutelage of Alex Ursuliak and Konstantin Rusau. He moved to Vienna in 1994, at the invitation of Anne Wooliams, director of the State Opera Ballet. He went on to dance many of ballet’s greatest roles, including Puck in John Nermeier’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream—a role created for him—as well as Mercutio in John Cranko´s Romeo and Juliet. His repertoire also includes choreographies by Kenneth MacMillan, Renato Zanella and William Forsythe. Coached by prominent choreographers including Danish ballet master Egon Madsen, he shared the stage with ballet greats Vladimir Malakhov and Brigitte Stadler. He also danced at the Vienna Dance Theater prior to becoming Solo Dancer at the Volksoper Vienna and taking on roles such as Cupido in Caravaggio as well as dancing in Swan Lake Remixed and Nudo. From 1993 to 2001, the prolific dancer performed in Germany, France, Ukraine, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, Greece and his native Turkey. After this extensive touring, Baris decided to move from classical ballet to contemporary dance in order to widen his artistic horizons. In 2002, he choreographed a presentation for the Swarovski Crystal World, which took him to Germany and Austria. Soon after, he bought a video camera, started filming dancers, and became fascinated with multimedia as a means of expressing through his eye. He was soon to add another string to his artistic bow, when he started making films and documentaries for dance companies and opera houses and pursued two parallel careers – dance and filmmaking. He also founded his own film production company called db Dance Film. In 2003, Baris created his first choreography at the Odeon Space in Vienna, which included other works by European choreographers and in which he performed in a short duet. He captured this event on film and produced Out There, A Play Through Time, which was later featured at the Vienna Short Film Festival. He went on to create over a dozen dance films and documentaries on dancers and dance venues, including the very first Black Dance Festival in Vienna, featuring performances by New York’s Opus Theater and the Dallas Ballet. He also filmed the International Impulse Dance Festival in Vienna, directed, choreographed and performed by Ismael Ivo (Mapplethorpe). A few years earlier, Baris had seen Cirque du Soleil’s production Alegría in Vienna and immediately saw himself in one of the company’s shows. After contacting Cirque’s casting department in 2003, he was invited to Berlin a month later to audition for one of three coveted dance roles, and made the cut. He joined Cirque’s Dralion tour a year later. In 2005, Baris danced in New Opera Vienna's production Seven Deadly Sins, which he captured on film, and later joined Cirque du Soleil’s innovative multimedia touring show Delirium, under the direction of American choreographer Mia Michaels. The show visited more than 150 cities across the United States, Canada and Mexico. Baris Dilaver currently lives in Vienna, where he is pursuing his work as a choreographer and filmmaker. http://www.barisdilaver.com