Birgit Culberg

Birgit Cullberg

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Birgit Cullberg (3 August 1908 – 8 September 1999) was a Swedish choreographer. The daughter of bank manager Carl Cullberg and Elna Westerström, Cullberg was born in Nyköping and married from 1942 to 1949 to actor Anders Ek. She was the mother of Niklas Ek, Mats Ek, and Malin Ek.
Cullberg studied ballet under Kurt Jooss-Leeder and Lilian Karina and at The Royal Ballet, London (1952–1957). In 1960, Cullberg was appointed director and choreographer at the Stockholm City Theatre. Some of her choreographies were premiered at the Royal Opera in Stockholm.
Cullberg gained international recognition by founding the Cullberg Ballet in the 1960s. On her retiring in 1985, her son Mats Ek took over the ballet company. The Swedish Arts Grants Committee instituted the Cullberg scholarship in her honour, and she was awarded an honorary professorship at Stockholm University, where she had studied when she was young. She also received the French honour Commendeur des Arts et Lettres and the Italian honour Cavaliere Ufficiale.

Birgit Cullberg, a pioneering experimental choreographer in Sweden who earned an international reputation through her intense dramatic ballets and vigorous social-protest pieces, died on Wednesday in Stockholm, where she lived. She was 91.
Although Miss Cullberg was a disciple of the German Expressionist choreographer Kurt Jooss, her own style fused modern dance and ballet. She was resident choreographer of the Royal Swedish Ballet from 1951 to 1957, and her most famous works were danced by ballet companies throughout the world.
Among these was her acknowledged masterpiece, ''Miss Julie,'' based on the August Strindberg play; it had its premiere in Sweden in 1950. Restaged to great acclaim in 1958 for American Ballet Theater, ''Miss Julie'' was a triumph for Violette Verdy in the title role, as the Swedish aristocrat who seduces a butler, and for Erik Bruhn as Jean, the butler. Mr. Bruhn virtually made the role his own for 20 years through his astonishingly powerful portrayal.
Ballet Theater staged three other Cullberg works, including the haunting Lapp tale ''Moon Reindeer.'' In 1958 the New York City Ballet presented Miss Cullberg's ''Medea'' with Melissa Hayden in the title role. In his review, John Martin, dance critic of The New York Times, wrote, ''There is not a superfluous phrase, a meaningless gesture, an item of mere decoration in the choreography from end to end.''