Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui is almost offended when I suggest he’s a busy man. “When people tell me, ‘You do so much,’ I cringe,” says the artistic director of the Grand Théâtre de Genève – the largest stage in Switzerland, with its ballet and opera companies – who runs his own company Eastman in his native city of Antwerp. He is also the creator of contemporary dance-theatre productions and a choreographer for film (Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina and Cyrano), musicals (Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill), pop (Beyoncé and Jay-Z, Madonna) and plenty more.
This autumn alone, nine different works of Cherkaoui’s are being performed around the world, including An Accident/A Life, a collaboration with performer Marc Brew, about the car accident that left Brew paralysed from the neck down – “It’s maybe the piece I’m most proud of,” Cherkaoui says – and the UK premiere of Vlaemsch (Chez Moi), both in London.
