Javier de Frutos is a multi award-winning director and choreographer who has directed a dynamic range of theatre productions as well as movement for TV and film. In 2007 he received an Olivier Award for his choreography in Cabaret.
Javier De Frutos was born in Venezuela in 1963 where he began his dance training in 1980, continuing at the London School of Contemporary Dance and at the Merce Cunningham School, New York.
From 1988 to 1992 he was a member of Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians in New York. In 1992, he was appointed Choreographer in Residence at Movement Research in New York City. On his return to the UK in 1994 he established the Javier De Frutos Dance Company which toured to great acclaim around the world.
In 1999 his achievements were recognised in a South Bank Show. The programme was nominated for the Royal Television Society Award.
In 2000 the digital channel Artsworld made a documentary about the making of The Celebrated Soubrette for Rambert Dance Company as well as a companion broadcast of its performance at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London. His ballet Milagros features in the documentary celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Royal New Zealand Ballet. The same year Javier was among the first to be made a Fellow of The Arts Council of England, conducting two years exhaustive research on the work of playwright Tennessee Williams.
In 2006 he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale with a trilogy of his work and developed and staged a new musical called Cattle Call in collaboration with Richard Thomas (creator of Jerry Springer the Opera) and the 2008 Tony Award winning designer Katrina Lyndsay.
Javier’s film and TV credits include The Long Road to Mazatlan in collaboration with Isaac Julien which was nominated for the Turner prize in 2001. Javier is also credited with the movement direction for Mika’s music video We Are Golden and more recently the pilot for the new HBO drama Game of Thrones directed by Thomas McCarthy.
Javier’s work is in the repertoire of many ballet and contemporary dance companies, including Rotterdam Dance Group, Ballet Shindowski, Nuremberg Ballet, Rambert Dance Company, The Royal New Zealand Ballet, Candoco, The Royal Ballet and Gothenburg Ballet.
His range extends beyond ballet and contemporary dance. A passionate focus of Javier’s work is musicals. He choreographed Carousel for the Chichester Festival Theatre, the National Theatre’s production of Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman (for which he was also movement director) and the acclaimed West End and touring productions of Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret for which he won the prestigious Olivier Award for Best Theatre Choreographer in February 2007. This follows Olivier Awards nominations in 2004 for best achievement in Dance (Elsa Canasta) and in 2005 for best new dance production (Milagros).
Javier is currently choreographer/movement director for the production of Macbeth at Shakespeare’s Globe. He is also working on a project with the Open Air Theatre, developing a musical about cigars set in Cuba and directing and choreographing the Pet Shop Boys ballet which is scheduled to open in London in early spring 2011.