Jonas Vlerick
Jonas Vlerick

Jonas Vlerick was born in Brugge, Belgium in 1985. He studied at the Royal Ballet School in Antwerp, Belgium. After completing the summer university with Le Ballet des Jeunes d’Europe, he was noticed by Robert Denvers, artistic director of the Royal Ballet of Flanders. He invited him to join the company in 2003. He was a dancer with this company till the end of 2016, consecutive under the direction of Kathryn Bennetts, Assis Carreiro and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.

He had several roles as a corps de ballet and as a soloist in works by distinguished choreographers such as: Jiri Kylian, William Forsythe, Nicolo Fonte,  Elo Jorma, Jacopo Godani, Marcia Haydee, Edward Clug, Christian Spuck, Balanchine…

He created several ballets for the Royal Ballet of Flanders the production Coupe Maison/Choreo Lab and Uncontainable: Living waters, Missing pieces, Inner moment, Unforeseen hope, 0², Theropoda, The bigger the front, the bigger the back and Unanswered. This year he created Allied Nodes.

At the very young age of 22 he got selected for “Uncontainable” a project from The Royal Ballet of Flanders who gave him a chance to make his first full length ballet “Missing pieces” for their mixed program. In 2013 he was selected to participate in the third Choreographic LAB of Dance East in Ipswich, led by Jonathan Lunn. There he had a chance to develop further as a choreographer in a very intense program.

Last season he made two new creations for the Royal Ballet school in Antwerp and one for the theatre de Meervaart in Amsterdam. A piece of him will be shown at the Dutch embassy in Macedonia.

In October 2015 he participated in the Valentina Kozlova International Ballet Competition (VKIBC). There he won a gold medal dancing his own piece and a silver medal for choreography.

In 2016 he was transitioning from dancer to full time choreographer. He worked with the dancers of Visceral Dance company in Chicago. For the program ‘Social instinct’ of the Dellatre company in Mainz he recreated his piece ‘Theropoda’ and for the Royal ballet of Flanders he made a new creation ‘Solar industries’. For the new season 2017-2018 he will make a 50 min piece for the Royal Ballet of Flanders’ education program. The première will be in februari 2018.

Jonas’s audiences respond in a positive way, since his ballets tend to pass a great energy and atmosphere.

Several dance magazines including ‘Dance Europe’ and ‘Dance Magazine Paris’ and Belgian newspapers reviewed his work successfully. Jonas continues to find his voice trough choreography pushing the body to the limits to find new ways of expression.

Since 2017 he is a full time choreographer.