Assis Carreiro new artistic director for Flanders

Assis Carreiro has been named new artistic director of the Royal Ballet of Flanders, after Kathryn Bennetts was forced out by a hostile Flanders government wishing to combine the ballet company with the opera company.
She will explain plans for the  2012-2013 season at a press conference in early September.Assis Carreiro: "I am honored and excited to be artistic director of this fantastic company. With the help of guest choreographers, new productions and ballet classics, I want to lead this company to new heights and further develop it as a national treasure. I look forward to getting to know Antwerp and Flanders and to giving the Royal Ballet of Flanders a unique profile in the artistic landscape of this country. "

Assis Carreiro
Assis Carreiro was born in the Azores and grew up in Canada. She moved to the UK in 1994, having been Director of Education, Community Outreach and Publications for the National Ballet of Canada for 12 years where she led the first education unit in a Canadian dance company. She is now one of the most influential figures in dance in the UK. From 1994 to 1996, she was Founding Director of DanceXchange in Birmingham and went on to work for Wayne McGregor | Random Dance and as a Fundraising Executive at The Place. During 1998/99 Assis was dance programmer at DasTAT in Germany for William Forsythe's Ballett Frankfurt before joining DanceEast in January, 2000.

Assis Carreiro has taught and lectured internationally and is on the board of Akram Khan Company and in the past has served on the boards of Dance UK, Dance 4, Canada’s Dancemakers, the Jonathan Burrows Group, the National Dance Network, and is a member of Les Repérages dance platform in Lille, France. She has been an advisor and assessor to the Arts Council of England’s Arts for Everyone Lottery Grants, London Arts Board, Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council, Scottish Government, and served on Sir Brian McMaster’s Sounding Board Review for Supporting Excellence in the Arts: From Measurement to Judgement. In 2003, the International Theatre Council nominated Assis for the International Dance Award. She holds an Honorary Doctorate in Civil Law from the University of East Anglia and was made a Visiting Senior Fellow in Dance in the School of Arts and Humanities of University Campus Suffolk in 2011. In 2009, Assis was a runner up for the East of England Business Woman of the Year.

Meanwhile, Canada's National Ballet School has announced that one of its faculty members, Shaun Amyot, will join Ms Carreiro as "Artistic Associate" in the 2013-14 season. For more info, click here.

If you love ballet, check out my season of outstanding ballet trips in 2012-13 by clicking here.

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