José Besprosvany is a choreographer and theatre director and was born in Mexico in 1959. He has been living in Belgium for more than twenty years and became a Belgian citizen in 2001. Since the early 1980s, José has been one of the reformers of Francophone Belgian contemporary dance (notably with the Mossoux-Bonté Company, Pierre Droulers, Michèle Noiret and Michèle-Anne de Mey).

José attended the École Jacques Lecoq in Paris, where he studied theatre (mime, movement, acting and mask play). During his studies as a dancer at the École Mudra directed by Maurice Béjart, he met the musician and teacher Fernand Schirren, who taught him that breathing and heart beat are at the core of each gesture and word, and how bringing these two together results in rhythm. José then danced with Maurice Béjart’s 20th Century Ballet for two years.

In 1986, José founded his own company, which provides a vehicle for his constant quest to find different modes of expression, and has resulted in a forceful and varied repertoire. His initial creations, Momentum (1984), Evento (1986) and Tempéraments (1988), were minimalist in style and were followed by a series of productions that questioned the relationship between classical and contemporary languages, with Von Heute auf Morgen (1989), Apollon la Nuit (1990) and Retours (1992). After this, José explored the relationships between narrative and dance in Cuarteto (1993), built around a text by Marguerite Duras, and followed by Hombre Alado (1995) and Lara (1996), the choreography of which was based on the anonymous text of a 15th century Spanish epic. These shows were all included in the programmes of importance dance centres. In 1992, José also created the choreographies for two operas presented at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie: Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Pascal Dusapin’s Medeamaterial.

In the late 1990s, José re-examined his work, which he judged to be too conformist, and he began to approach choreography from a different angle, which he continues to develop to this day. In 1999, along with pieces by Maguy Marin and William Forsythe, he presented Dos y Dos (1999), an astonishing encounter between dance and live flamenco music. That same year, he created the musical Belle à mourir based on the Kurdish legend Mamé Alan, adapted by Thomas Gunzig. Tryptico (2002) and 9 (2005) revealed a marked interest in non-Western performing arts, with a focus on the relationship between North and South.

In recent years, his work has frequently incorporated puppetry, with La Princesse de Babylone (2003), a story by Voltaire adapted and placed in an imaginary empire, narrated and sung by actors, dancers, musicians and a storyteller, as well as A propos de Butterfly (2004), La Belle au bois de Dandaka (2007) and Prometheus Bound (2010). In 2011, Dobles took the concept of Récitations one step further, transforming it into a subtle, technical duet for body and voice.

In parallel to his passion for dance, José is interested in directing both theatre and cinema. He directed Elles (1996) by Nicole Malinconi, Les Indifférents by Odilon-Jean Perier (1996) and L’Invisible by Philippe Blasband. He also directed Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, adapted by Henry Bauchau (1998), and created the dance-video Andrès (1992) and the short film Le Dessin (2004), which were presented at several international festivals.

He counts among his numerous prizes and distinctions: Il Coreografo Electronico (Italy) and the Bert Leysen Prijs (Belgium), as well as special mention from the jury in Danscreen (Germany) for the dance-video Andrès (1993), the prize for best show of the year in the Communauté française (Belgium) for La Princesse de Babylone (2004), and the spectators’ award and prize for new art forms at the Rainbow Festival (Russia) for A propos de Butterfly (2007).