Dancer and choreographer Robert Glumbek will receive The Banff Centre’s 2008 Clifford E. Lee Choreography Award, which provides the recipient with a six-week creation and production residency at The Banff Centre in addition to a $5,000 cash award. Working with dancers in the Centre’s new Professional Dance program, Glumbek will create a new work, which will have its world premiere as part of the Festival Dance program running from August 5 to 9 during the 2008 Banff Summer Arts Festival.
“Robert Glumbek was the unanimous choice of the jury, made up of the artistic directors of the seven ballet companies that we’ve partnered with to create our new professional dance program,” says Sarah Iley, the Centre’s vice president, programming. “The fact that he stood out in a very strong field is a testament to the very high calibre of his current work as a choreographer, and also to his enormous potential contribution to dance in Canada.”
After graduating from Bytom State Ballet School in Poland, Glumbek joined the Great Theatre of Opera and Ballet in Warsaw as a soloist. In 1987, Glumbek left Poland for Canada, and in 1990 he began a ten-year venture with Desrosiers Dance Theatre in Toronto. He joined Germany’s National Theatre Mannheim in 2002 as dancer and ballet master, returning to Canada in 2004 to focus on his career as an independent artist, and to explore a career as a choreographer. Artistic associate at Toronto’s ProArteDanza, Glumbek has created works for the National Finnish Theatre, Mannheim Ballett, and ProArteDanza. A popular guest teacher, he has taught at the National Ballet of Canada, Dance Teq, and the Randolph Academy.
“This is an extraordinary opportunity to create in such a physically inspiring environment,” Glumbek says. “I am grateful to be given the support to explore new ideas and to challenge my own artistic boundaries, personally as a dancer, and also through my choreography.”
The Clifford E. Lee Choreography Award, given annually by The Banff Centre to an emerging Canadian choreographer, was established in 1978 by the Clifford E. Lee Foundation. Past recipients include Mark Godden, Christopher House, Bengt Jörgen, Sabrina Matthews, Crystal Pite, Wen Wei Wang, and Simone Orlando. The Banff Centre’s new professional dance program is directed by Lindsay Fischer and involves the following partners: John Alleyne of Ballet British Columbia, Gradimir Pankov at Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, Karen Kain at the National Ballet of Canada, Andre Lewis of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Alberta Ballet’s Jean Grand-Maître, Boston Ballet’s Mikko Nissanen, and Bengt Jörgen of Ballet Jörgen.