Monique Duurvoort

I am a Dutch choreographer born in Amsterdam. My roots lie in Friesland (Northern province of The Netherlands), Surinam and other places on various continents.

After completing my education at the School of the Arts in Amsterdam, I worked for many years as a professional dancer at the Dutch National Ballet. Here I became familiar with the work of choreographers such as Rudi van Dantzig, Toer van Schayk, Hans van Manen, George Balanchine, William Forsythe, Jan Fabre, Martha Graham, Frederick Ashton and others.

Through my involvement in the Amsterdam dance/club scene, I simultaneously developed a great passion for various Hip Hop dance styles. In my spare time I studied these styles extensively.

Already during my time at Dutch National Ballet I started to explore the possibilities of mixing different dance styles, with the focus on Hip Hop and academic styles. In 2005, two years after retiring from classical ballet, I made my first choreography 'Meanwhile on the other side...'.

In 2007, after having worked for 2 ½ years as the co-artistic director and choreographer at “ISH’ (a well known youth dance-theatre company based in Amsterdam) i decided to continue my career as an independent choreographer.

That same year I was awarded with the prestigious 'Prize of the Dutch Dance Days', for most talented choreographer in the Dutch professional dance scene.

Since then, I’ve made work for various dance companies and academies.

As of 2010 I produce my work under my own foundation: MDDance (Monique Duurvoort Dance).