After graduating from the Royal Ballet School of Antwerp in 2008, Jan began his professional career at the Royal Ballet of Flanders under the direction of Kathryn Bennetts.
In 2012, he joined the Semperoper Ballet Dresden as a Coryphée for 2 years. He has then been First Soloist with the Ballett Zürich in Switzerland for 9 years.
A versatile dancer, he is just as talented in the role of a prince as he is in modern and contemporary pieces. He was invited by the English National Ballet to dance David Dawson’s Faun(e), which he performed at Les Hivernales de la Danse for the very first edition of the Gala in 2012.
In 2019, Jan was awarded “Dancer of the year” by the German TANZ Magazine.
His repertoire includes many roles such as Lensky in Onegin (John Cranko), The Knight in The Nutcracker (Aaron S. Watkin/Jason Beechey after Marius Petipa), In the middle somewhat elevated, Impressing the Czar, Artifact and Quintett (William Forsythe), Leonce in Leonce and Lena, Paris in Romeo and Juliet, and the lead role in Woyzeck (Christian Spuck).
During his young career, he has created and danced in numerous works by Kenneth MacMillan, George Balanchine, Alexei Ratmansky, Jiří Kylián, David Dawson, Wayne McGregor, Sol León/Paul Lightfoot, Hans Van Mahnen, Edward Clug, Stijn Celis, Jacopo Godani, Alexander Ekman and Marco Goecke.
Over the past 3 years, he also danced the title role in Marco Goecke’s Nijinsky, as well as the title role in Edward Clug’s Faust and Peer Gynt.
Photo © Arnaud Stephenson