Nadj Josef

Choreographer 

born in 1957 in Kanjiza, a province of Vojvodina in the former Yugoslavia, in what is today Serbia.

Beginning in childhood, he drew, practiced wrestling, accordeon, soccer and chess, intending a career in painting.
Between the ages of 15 and 18, he studied at the fine arts high school of Novi Sad (the capital of Vojvodina), followed by 15 months of military service in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Afterwards, he left to study art history and music at the Academy of Fine Arts and at the University of Budapest, where he also began studying physical expression and acting.

In 1980, he left for Paris to continue his training with Marcel Marceau and Etienne Decroux. Simultaneously he discovered modern dance, at the time in a period of swift expansion in France. He followed the teachings of Larri Leong (who combined dance, kimomichi and aidido) and Yves Cassati, also taking classes in tai-chi, butoh and contact improvisation (with Mark Tompkins), began himself to teach the movement arts in 1983 (in France and Hungry), and participated as a performer in works by Sidonie Rochon (Papier froissé, 1984), Mark Tompkins (Trahison Men, 1985), Catherine Diverrès (l’Arbitre des élégances, 1988) and François Verret (Illusion comique and La, commissioned by the GRCOP, 1986).

In 1986 he founded his company, Théâtre JEL – “jel” meaning “sign” in Hungarian – and created his first work, Canard Pékinois, presented in 1987 at the Théâtre de la Bastille and remounted the following year at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris.
In 1982, Josef Nadj completely abandoned drawing and painting to dedicate himself fully to dance, and would not begin showing his work again until fifteen years later. But in 1989 he began practicing photography, pursuing it without interruption to the present.
In November 1996 he returned to exhibiting, first with his “Installations”, a series of sculptures centred upon the concept of time, executed in extension to the creation of his stage work Commentaires d’Habacuc; then in 2000, “Miniatures”, a cycle of India ink drawings inspired, like Les Philosophes, from the works of Bruno Schulz; and finally, since 2003 exhibiting his photography in several one man shows.

In 2006, Josef Nadj was Associated Artist for the 60th Festival of Avignon, presenting Asobu as the festival’s opening performance in the Court of Honour of the Palais des Papes, as well as Paso doble at the Celestins Church.

Since 1995, Josef Nadj has been the director of the Centre Chorégraphique National d’Orléans.