Shirley Esseboom

After graduating from the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, Shirley joined the Nederlands Dans Theater 2 and stayed there for four years. She continued her dancing with the main company, Nederlands Dans Theater for more than ten years. Within this period she also danced one season with Les Ballets de Monte Carlo in Monaco. During her dance career with NDT, she worked with choreographers such as Jiří Kylian, Mats Ek, William Forsythe, Ohad Naharin, Johan Inger, Paul Lightfoot and Sol Léon, Crystal Pite, Nacho Duato, Hans van Manen and others. After an impressive career with Nederlands Dans Theater, she continued to teach and work as ballet mistress.

Shirley Esseboom has become a freelance ballet mistress for Kylian Productions, teaching and staging Kylián’s work around the world. She received three prestigious dance awards: the Encouragement Prize (1998) and Merit Award (2008) from the Stichting Dansersfonds ’79 and the Gouden Zwaan (2009).