Oliver Dähler
The Bernese dancer, choreographer and dance teacher was trained at the Royal Ballet School in London. This was followed by engagements with the Royal Ballet London, the Royal Ballet of Flanders in Antwerp and the ballet at the Stadttheater Bern under Martin Schläpfer. At the same theater as well as at the Lucerne Theater he works as ballet master, «choreographer in residence» and dance mediator.
Oliver Dähler has danced in leading roles of the classical and contemporary repertoire in works by Jiří Kylián, Nils Christe, George Balanchine and Kurt Jooss, Hans van Manen and numerous choreographies by Martin Schläpfer, among others.
Oliver Dähler has created more than 40 choreographies to date (including at the Mecklenburg State Theater in Schwerin, the Stadttheater in Bern, the Lucerne Theater and for the Lucerne Festival). Among them are full-length story ballets and orchestral evenings as well as «site-specific» performances.
Dähler has been active in cultural politics as the first president of Danse Suisse and as vice president of SzeneSchweiz.
He also initiated the Transition Center SSUDK for career development and retraining of performing artists and has been its executive director since 2016 (www.ssudk.ch).
The Canton of Bern Recognition Award enabled him to work in New York City with David Howard, Zvi Gotheiner, and Frank Augustyn, among others. In 2007 he completed the NDS Dance Culture at the University of Bern and acquired the «Teacher Certificate» of the «Royal Academy of Dance» in London. He also attended the GAGA Intensive Training with Ohad Naharin and Batsheva Dance in Israel.
He studied Cultural Management at the University of Zurich and graduated in 2014 with an Executive Master in Arts Administration EMAA (MA-Thesis Berufliche transition von Bühnentänzer:innen in der Schweiz 2014).
In 2020-2022 he continued his education in photojournalism at the «MAZ in Luzern, der Schweizer Journalistenschule» www.oliverdaehler.ch