Choreographies, Theatre, Design

From 1987 to 2002 Karine Guizzo worked as a dancer at Nederland’s Dans Theater 1 under the direction of Jiří Kylián and also with guest choreographers, like Ohad Naharin, Hans van Manen, Mats Ek, William Forsythe.

In 2000, Kylián invited her to create in The Hague the project Underground Scenes for Nederland’s Dance Theater, an overture to the evening “Arcimboldo”, which she subsequently presented and re-created in Amsterdam Muziek Theatre, Basel, Berlin Staatstheater, Baden-Baden, Paris Opera, Edinburgh Festival Theatre, and Prague National Theatre and at the Saitama Art Theatre in Japan. [Collaboration with Yvan Dubreuil]. Between 2006 and 2013 she created new “Underground scenes”, following the same concept as „overture“ for the Kylián evening at the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen, for the Norwegian Opera and Ballet, Oslo, and the Bayerisches Staatsballet in Munich.

For these performing installations, she creates the mise-en - scéne/choreography and also the objects/set and costumes. She enjoys the collaboration with the makers & ateliers in the theatres, and sometimes with musicians, singers, and compositors. Her source of inspiration comes from the location itself, the people she works with. Karine enjoys inventing stories, working with existing ones [Pinocchio, Ovide s Metamorfoses], or creating abstract  choreographic “landscapes.”

Karine was also commissioned to create choreographies or performing installations in situ for a number of companies, theatres, and festivals: Korzo Theatre, Cadance Festival, Netherlands Dance Theatre [50 years jubilee in 2009] with a tour in Grand Theatre du Luxembourg and Teatro Real Madrid], Holland Dance Festival, Codarts University of the Arts Rotterdam, DogTroep, Donlon Dance Company Saarbruecken [DR], National Theatre Brno [Janacek Festival 2010] [CZ] and with the National Theatre Prague, for a collaboration on an Opera, [Orfeo + Eurydice 2013]. For this opera, Karine worked with 12 dancers and a choir of 30 singers, and 10 soloists. 

Karine co-founded the Danslab in The Hague (2005), a place to focus on research, and created a few independent subsidized projects [Un Dia Tabata, 2009. Pinocchio, 2011, We are Monuments 2020, OPEN SPACE and SHOW OFF 2021 ) within the activities of her Foundation,  Stichting Cie Melchior.

Between 2014 and today, Karine has been creating performances for festivals and evenings [Het Circus, Winterlicht Festival, Regentes Theatre, Fitchi Festival in Chili.

For the anniversary of 50 years of the Royal Academy of Art and Royal Conservatorium in the Hague, Karine collaborated on the creation of a movie and was also invited in 2017 by the Music department of the Royal Conservatory to direct and choreograph a full evening: “Nutcracker", with music by Duke Ellington played live and with a set designed and costumes by the students in Architecture and Design of The Royal Academy of Art.

She is working for the fourth year now on the creation of performances with an author from the National Theatre in The Hague. This project, produced by The New Regentes Theatre proposes to non-professional performers to develop their skills in text writing, acting, and dancing, and to perform in few theaters in The Hague.