Medhi Walerski (1979, France) started dancing when he was seven. After taking classes with Laurie Bokobza and Christine Caroly in Canteleu from age twelve till he was sixteen, he left for Paris to pursue his dance education at the Conservatoire Supérieure. Here he was trained in classical ballet, modern dance and improvisation. Once his conservatory training was finished, he joined the Paris Opéra Ballet, the Nice Opéra Ballet and Ballet du Rhin in Mulhouse, France, as a professional dancer. In 2001 he exchanged France for the Netherlands and continued his dance career with Nederlands Dans Theater in The Hague. Via Nederlands Dans Theater II (2001-2003) he moved up to Nederlands Dans Theater I, where he has grown into a dancer who is vital to the image of the company.
Although Walerski started making choreographies at a very young age, his real start as a choreographer was with Nederlands Dans Theater. He developed his skills by participating several times in Nederlands Dans Theater´s annual Choreography Workshops (now called Switch as of 2008). His talent was noticed, reason why Anders Hellström, artistic director of Nederlands Dans Theater, invited him to make new work for the programme ‘UpComing Choreographers 2006’. With Moume the Frenchman produced an impressive work which was well received. As Dance Europe wrote about it: ‘the most original voice came from the last choreographer, Medhi Walerski, who succeeded in making his dancers move in a very different way, with a physicality that is more raw’.
The next year he made Buried Dead or Alive, together with freelance choreographer Alexander Ekman, for C-Scope (an initiative of Cora Bos-Kroese). In December 2007 he contributed to ‘Sharing Art’, a project for street children in Bangladesh initiated by choreographers´ duo Lightfoot León. In the season to come Walerski will make new work for Nederlands Dans Theater I. Mammatus for Nederlands Dans Theater II is Walerski’s official debut as a choreographer within the regular season´s programme of Nederlands Dans Theater. Underneath is his first work for Nederlands Dans Theater I.