User:Janek7/Janek Schergen

Janek Schergen is from Göteborg, Sweden. He studied ballet with Richard Ellis and Christine Du Boulay of the Sadlers Wells Ballet, and continued at the American Ballet Center and the Harkness House for Ballet Arts in New York. In 1971 he joined the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and the following year became a member of the Pennsylvania Ballet in Philadelphia, under the directorship of Barbara Weisberger and Benjamin Harkarvy, spending 11 years with the company. In 1978, under the guidance of Mr. Harkarvy and Lupe Seranno, he began teaching in the School of the Pennsylvania Ballet. In addition to maintaining his career as a dancer and teacher, he began staging the works of Mr. Harkarvy for Pennsylvania Ballet and other companies.

In 1981, he was invited by Mary Day, the Director of Washington Ballet and Choo San Goh, the company’s Resident Choreographer, to guest teach for the Washington Ballet. He joined Washington Ballet in a full time position as ballet master and teacher and toured with the company through the Far East, Europe and South America, as well as the United States.

In 1988 he was invited to be ballet master and company teacher for the Royal Swedish Ballet in Stockholm, rehearsing full-length classics such as Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and La Bayadere, as well as works by Sir Frederick Ashton and Sir Kenneth MacMillan. With Sir Kenneth’s encouragement, he undertook and completed his studies in written dance notation in London, receiving his certification in Benesh Movement Notation.

In 1991 he became a ballet master for Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre where he rehearsed the full length classics and important additions to the repertoire such as MacMillan’s Elite Syncopations, Lynne Taylor-Corbett’s Great Galloping Gottschalk, John Cranko’s The Taming of the Shrew and Balanchine’s Apollo, Ballet Imperial, Serenade, Allegro Brillante, Concerto Barocco, Theme and Variations as well as others in the repertoire. He has staged his own production of The Sleeping Beauty for Ballet Met (1994) The Milwaukee Ballet (1995), Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre (1996, 2000, 2005) Pennsylvania Ballet (1997, 2002, 2007) and the Norwegian National Ballet (2006). In 2010 he will mount his production of Sleeping Beauty for Singapore Dance Theatre.

In January, 1994 he was appointed Artistic Director of the Nashville Ballet, as well as Director of the company’s School. He remained with the organization for three seasons. From 1997 to 2002 he taught company and School classes for Ballet Pacifica and Inland Pacific Ballet. He has been a frequent guest teacher at independent and company schools from Washington School of Ballet, New Zealand School of Dance to White Lodge at the Royal Ballet School. He also taught at the University of Utah and Chapman University in the past.

In addition, as Artistic Director and a Board Member of The Choo-San Goh & H. Robert Magee Foundation, he continues to stage the works of Mr. Goh for various companies in the United States, Canada, Europe, South Africa and the Far East. He has staged more than 130 productions worldwide. He is the Chairman of the Awards Committee for the Choo-San Goh Awards for Choreography, which annually gives out choreographic grants for new creations to dance companies internationally. In the past 16 years 87 Awards have been made and more than $800,000.00 has been dedicated to the creation of new works of choreography through the efforts of the Foundation. At the end of 2008 the Goh/Magee Foundation ended the Awards for Choreography as previously presented.

Since the establishment of the Singapore Dance Theatre in 1988 he has been staging the ballets of Choo San Goh for the company’s repertoire. To date he has staged twelve works for them and in December 2000 he mounted Goh’s Romeo and Juliet for the company. At the request of SDT he was asked to author a monograph on the career and ballets of Choo-San Goh. The book, with his text, was published in Singapore in September, 1997.

From 2002 through 2006 he was ballet master and company teacher for the Norwegian National Ballet in Oslo. He was responsible for rehearsal of many full length works (Swan Lake, Othello, Cinderella, Taming of the Shrew, Onegin, Sleeping Beauty) in addition to contemporary works and the Balanchine repertoire including Symphony in C, Agon, Serenade and Four Temperaments.

In 2007 he accepted the position of Assistant Artistic Director of Singapore Dance Theatre. In recent seasons at SDT he has staged a 20th year commemorative performance for Choo San Goh entitled Legacy, as well as a full-length Swan Lake, Giselle and the company’s 20th Anniversary Gala. As of October,2008 he was announced as the Artistic Director of Singapore Dance Theatre commencing in 2009. In May 2009 he created Colourpointe for SDT's children's programme, Colours of Ballet. In July 2009 he created POP! for SDT's 15th annual Ballet Under the Stars performance. In 2010 he created Peter and Blue's Forest Adventure for the second year of the children's series. Also for SDT he established the One @ the Ballet, open rehearsals on Saturdays and the Ballet Associates series of master classes for serious ballet students. In December 2010 he will stage Sleeping Beauty for Singapore Dance Theatre.