Emanuel Gat is a dancer and choreographer, and artistic director of the Emanuel Gat Dance. Born in Israel. His first encounter with dance was at the age of 23 during a workshop led by Israeli choreographer Nir Ben Gal. Six months later, at age 23, Gat joined the Liat Dror Nir Ben Gal Company with whom he toured in Israel and around the world. Shortly after Gat began working as an independent choreographer, creating his first solo piece Four Dances in 1994 to music by Bach. Over the next 10 years Gat created a number of independent projects as dancer and choreographer. His work has been presented in Israel as well as internationally at dance festivals around the world. Gat received a scholarship from the Ballet Master Albert Gaubiers Fund in 1995 and the Rosenblum Award for Performing Arts in 2003 as well as the Landau award (2004). In January 2004 Gat established his company - Emanuel Gat Dance, which received Israel’s Minister of Culture Award in 2005 for outstanding dance performances. In 2006 Gat was named a chosen artist of the Israel Cultural Excellence Foundation IcExcellence, one of Israel's highest honors for artists.
In 2004 Emanuel founded his independent company Emanuel Gat Dance. The premier of Winter Voyage and The Rite of Spring took place at Uzès Festival in June 2004. These two works were performed since to great acclaim more than 300 times worldwide. In 2006 Emanuel Gat received the Bessie Award for the presentation of this program at the Lincoln Center Festival in New York. In 2006 Emanuel created K626 a work for 8 dancers based on Mozart’s Requiem, which was premiered at the Festival de Marseilles. The following year, the company premiered 3for2007 (a three piece program including My Favorite things a solo danced by Emanuel to music by John Coltrane, Petit torn de dança a duet to medieval French songs and Through the Center... a piece for 8 dancers to electronic music by Squarepusher.
In September 2007, Emanuel moved to France and based his company at the town of Istres where it is hosted since by Ouest Provence. Silent Ballet, a piece for 8 dancers with no music, was premiered on July 2008 at Montpellier Danse Festival. Co-produced by the Lincoln Center Festival New York, Romaeuropa Festival, the Sadler's Wells Theater in London and the Montpellier Dance Festival. Later that year, Emanuel and Roy Assaf went back to their long time collaboration creating Winter Variations, a 50 minutes duet premiered at the American Dance Festival on June 2009 and presented later at Montpellier Danse and The Lincoln Center Festival.
Emanuel Gat is regularly invited to set his work and create new choreographies for dance compnies arround the world including: Tanztheater Bremen (Trotz dem alten Drachen, 2007, and The Revised and Updated Bremen Structures, 2010), The Paris Opera Ballet (Hark!, 2009), Noord Nederlandse Dans (Through the Center..., 2009), Le Ballet du Rhin (Observation Action, 2010), Sydney Dance Company (Satisfying Musical Moments, 2010), Candoco Dance Company (In Translation, 2010), Le Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève (Préludes & Fugues, 2011), Polish National Ballet (The Rite of Spring, 2011) among others.
