Rudi van Dantzig

[2] He was six years old when the German army defeated Dutch forces in the Battle of the Netherlands in May 1940 and occupied the country at the beginning of World War II.

When he wandered into a cinema showing The Red Shoes (1948), the ballet film by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, his future path was decided.

There was a shortage of talented male dancers in postwar Europe, so, although he was not highly skilled, Gaskell engaged him in 1954 as a member of her company, Ballet Recital.

Combining both classical and modern dance techniques, his ballets are expressionistic and fraught with symbolism, usually displaying psychological conflicts within a principal character.

He asked to be taught the principal role in Monument for a Dead Boy, which he eventually performed to acclaim for audiences in England and the United States, proving himself an accomplished modern dancer as well as a classicist.

He and van Dantzig forged a strong friendship,[8] and he subsequently returned to Amsterdam with commissions for two new ballets, Blown in a Gentle Wind (1975) and About a Dark House (1976).

[11] As a homosexual with an active political sensibility, van Dantzig felt acutely the intolerance of his times, and this became a major theme in his ballets and his writings.

He shared his life and career with his partner Toer van Schayk (born 1936), a dancer, set and costume designer, and choreographer with the Dutch National Ballet.