Uwe Scholz

Uwe Scholz (31 December 1958 – 21 November 2004) was a German ballet dancer, director, and choreographer.

Life
Scholz was born in Jugenheim (now Seeheim-Jugenheim) in Hesse, Germany on 31 December 1958, and moved as a child to the Landestheater Darmstadt for ballet and music training.

In 1973, he was admitted to John Cranko's Ballet School in Stuttgart, one month before Cranko's death, and studied under Marcia Haydée. Scholz also studied, on scholarship, at Balanchine's School of American Ballet in New York. He graduated from Stuttgart in 1977, and joined the Stuttgart Ballet. At 26 he became the director of the Zürich Ballet, and directed there for the next 6 years, before returning to Germany to become director of the Leipzig Ballet, where he was also chief choreographer. He remained in Leipzig from 1991 until his death. Among his most famous creations are Mozart's Great Mass, Pax Questuosa by Udo Zimmermann, Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, The Red and the Black by Stendhal, and much else. In 1993 he was appointed professor at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig. He was also a founding member of the Freie Akademie der Künste zu Leipzig (Free Academy of Arts in Leipzig).

He died on 21 November 2004 in Berlin.

Awards

 * Omaggio Alla Danza (1987)
 * Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1996)
 * Bayerischer Theaterpreis (Theatre prize of the Bavarian State Government) in the dance category (1998)
 * Deutscher Tanzpreis (1999)