Kristian Lever is a british – finnish award winning choreographer, stage director and writer. As well as founder and artistic director of Klever dance and Klever creatives. most recently having written and directed his debut fiction short film “the stranger”.
Kristian was born in London, UK and raised in Helsinki, Finland before moving to Moscow, Russia to train at the prestigious Bolshoi ballet academy. Later he continued to Dresden, Germany at the Palucca Univeristy of dance to finish his education. Giving him a wide range of knowledge and experience from different styles of dance and movement. Kristian’s dance performance repertoire includes works by Jiří Kylián, Nacho Duato, Ohad Naharin, Marco Goecke, Natalia Horencna, John Neumeier and many others.
Under the direction of Mr. John Neumeier and Kevin Haigen at the Hamburg ballet, Kristian was offered his first professional engagement as a choreographer at the young age of 20. he has created several works for the National Youth Ballet of Germany, Croatian National Ballet of Rijeka, Croatian National Ballet of Split, Ballet Theatre Tivoli in Copenhagen, festivals of the Royal Danish Ballet, Ballet Vorpommern, the Hamburg Ballet, the Ukrainian National Ballet, the Salzburger Landestheater Ballet Company, as well as for dancers with Nederlands Dans Theater, Hessisches Staatsballett and the Royal Ballet.
Kristian founded is own production based dance company, Klever dance, with which he collaborates with world renowned dancers, actors, designers, writers and composers. premiering the critically acclaimed evening production framework, in November 2019, which toured in three different countries within the first month of it’s premiere. In July 2020, Klever dance premiered Kristian’s latest stage production “Connecting Doors” which is planned for it’s European tour in 2021.
He was awarded the Erik Bruhn Prize (Canada) representing the Hamburg Ballet – John Neumeier for his choreography “an intimate distance”, hosted by the National ballet of Canada on March 23, 2019 at the four seasons center in Toronto. In Germany’s Tanz magazine’s Yearbook of 2019, Kristian Lever was honored as “promising talent 2019” (Germany). In September 2020, “Kammerballetten” (artistic director Alexander Mckenzie) a stage production combining chamber music and dance was awarded the reumerts award (Denmark) for best dance prodcution 2019. Kristian contributed two works for the project.