The Dropouts

Jo Strømgren was born in Norway. He is a choreographer, director, and a playwright. He has also developed his own style of set design and lighting design. Adding to this he has vast experience in filmmaking, both in front and behind the camera.

As a choreographer he has been commissioned by a wide range of companies – from classical to contemporary. As a theatre director he has worked mainly with national and municipal theatres in the Nordic region, but also with several productions in USA, Germany, and Russia. As a playwright he has written a long list of plays for theatre and scripts for film.

Jo Strømgren is the artistic director of Jo Strømgren Kompani and currently Resident Choreographer at the Norwegian National Ballet. His CV covers more than 150 productions, most of them full evenings. His works have been performed in 64 countries.

Bregje van Balen has been a prominent dancer for 18 years with Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) I and II. Always with an interest in costume design, she created her first costumes for the annual NDT workshop and for smaller dance projects in 1995.

After retiring as a dancer, she trained as a designer at Baruch Mode Academie. She has designed costumes for several companies including Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) I and II, The Royal Ballet London, Norwegian National Ballet, Gothenburg Ballet, Malmö Stadsteater, Hamburg Ballet, Introdans, Royal Swedish Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, Icelandic Dance Theatre, Puschkin Theater Moscow, Bolshoi Ballet, Staatstheater Mainz, Gärtnerplatztheater, Aalto Theater, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal and Stuttgarter Ballet.

She has worked with choreographers, including Johan Inger, Jorma Elo, Medhi Walerski, Gustavo Ramírez Sansano, Lukas Timulak, Bryan Arias, Ina Christel Johannessen, Jo Strømgren, Alexander Ekman, Patrick Delcroix and Cathy Marston.  At Theater Basel, her costumes can be seen in Richard Wherlock's story ballet ‘Heidi’.