Marne van Opstal is an international choreographer, movement director and performing artist born in (1990) Velden, the Netherlands. His work has been presented internationally. After having enjoyed a successful and prominent career at the prestigious Nederlands Dans Theater 1 & 2, he went on to pursue his own creativity. Together with sibling Imre he forms a creative duo.
The collaborative nature of their work often speaks to the human condition, limits and possibilities of the body and mind. Their work is known to be multi-layered and surrealistic, with a strong and outspoken dance language known for its eclecticism, theatricality and partnering elements.Through their work they explore a wide range of topics that are often rooted in their direct reflection of society and the workings of the natural world. Continually looking to break and deconstruct movement by finding the fringes of what is possible through the medium of dance. They are looking to find multidisciplinary collaborations within theatre, film, photography, fashion, design, installation art etc. with a focus on the artistic process and hope to find new ways to communicate with an audience.
They have choreographed and movement directed the EUSEXUA tour for FKA Twigs and the EYEYE tour for Lykke Li and worked on music videos with Lykke Li and Ry X. They collaborated with visual artists Jordan Wolfson, Studio Drift, Boris Acket among others. With brands such as Dior, Marsell and Porsche.
Since 2020 Marne and Imre have created works for various international dance companies. Creating ‘Baby dont hurt me’ (2021) for NDT1, ‘Eye Candy’ (2021) for Rambert Dance Company, ‘The little man’ (2022) for National Theater Mannheim, ‘I’m afraid to forget your smile’ (2022) for the Hessian State Ballet, ‘Heart Drive’ (2022) for Ballet BC, ‘Mommy, Look!’ for Ballett Theater Basel (2023), ‘To Kingdom Come’ for GoteborgOperans Danskompani (2023), ‘The Point Being’ (2023) for NDT1 in collaboration with Studio Drift, ‘Atlas Song’ (2024) in collaboration with Anna von Hausswolff and GoteborgOperans Danskompani, ‘I am Bob’ (2024) for Hessian State Ballet.
Their work ‘Voodoo Waltz’ (2024) marks their first full evening created in collaboration with Schauspielhaus Bochum. An interdisciplinary work with actors and selected dancers. Inspired by the book: ‘Voodoo Waltz for epileptics’ by Slovenian writer Jana Rakus. A dizzying world where dance meets drama, text becomes movement and movement creates subtext. They received the German theatre award ‘Der Faust’ for best dance production for Voodoo Waltz.
Early Life
He received his early training at the ‘Vooropleiding Dans’ in Venlo under the direction of Liesbeth Wiertz. As a twelve-year-old he performed with ‘Introdans voor de jeugd’ in a program called ‘Mmmozart’. During the dance competition ‘Tanzolymp’ in Berlin, Van Opstal won a special prize for ‘up-and-coming talent’.
After graduating from high school he went on to study at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. During his training he received an apprenticeship with Introdans. He joined the program ‘Notenkraker en de Muizenkoning’ of the Dutch National Ballet and went on to dance in ‘Twools 11’ by Scapino Ballet Rotterdam with the work ‘Focus’. Focus was specially created by Ed Wubbe for the televised program ‘The evening of the young dancer’, which was a competition between the dance academies in The Netherlands. Marne ultimately won the competition.
He went on to join Nederlands Dans Theater 2 in 2009 after which he continued with Nederlands Dans Theater 1 until Iate 2020. He created with and performed in works by renowned choreographers, including; Jiri Kylian, Paul Lightfoot & Sol Leon, Ohad Naharin, Hans van Manen, Franck Chartier, Gabriella Carrizo, Crystal Pite, Hofesh Shechter, Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar, Johan Inger, Marco Goecke, Alexander Ekman, Ivan Perez among others. During his time the company toured worldwide to famous and renowned theatres, for example the Sydney Opera House, The Kennedy Center, The Bolshoi Theatre. In 2011 his home province of Limburg awarded him the Limburg Culture Award. Marne was nominated by the VSCD (Dutch Theatre Association) for the Silver Swan Award: the ‘most impressive dance achievement 2014’ for his role in ‘Uprising & In your rooms’ by Hofesh Shechter.
Marne’s interest in choreography started at a very young age, creating yearly for school performances. In tandem with his career as a professional dancer Marne started to further develop his choreographic skills. Starting with his participation in the annual benefit event ‘Switch’ by Nederlands Dans Theater. Imre and Marne created their first work ‘Arm’s Length’ for Switch after which they created ‘LiNK’ (2014) and ‘John Doe’ (2015) for their talent development program called ‘Up & Coming Choreographers’. In 2017 they debuted with ‘The Grey’ for NDT2’s regular programming and continued to create ‘Take Root’ (2019) for NDT1. Take Root was nominated by the VSCD for the Swan Award: ‘most impressive dance production 2019’. And since 2020 fully focused on their choreographic career.
