A legendary hero does the honors, and the Staatstheater invites you to the Round Table. Based on the baroque opera King Arthur by Henry Purcell, the young choreographer Chris Jäger has created a modern version of the legendary story of the British King Arthur in a cross-disciplinary project involving the Hessisches Staatsballett, Schauspiel and Musiktheater. The then ground-breaking musical work based on the five-act libretto and prologue by John Dryden offers plenty of fuel for a spectacle at the end of the season.
Chris Jäger is very familiar with this profession: he has already choreographed for Hollywood blockbusters such as The Hunger Games: ballad of songbirds and snakes, TÁR or John Wick Chapter 4 as well as the successful German television series Babylon Berlin. He has previously performed at the Hessisches Staatsballett; in 2023 with Sex with Madonna at the International May Festival and in 2024 with Daddy Shot My Rabbit at the Kammerspiele in Darmstadt.
Adrenaline and excess go hand in hand in Jäger’s visually powerful works, and the choreographer does not shy away from exploring marginal social issues such as intoxication, depression and trauma through dance.
Staging & Choreography Chris Jäger
Music/composition Tobias Schwencke, Paul Frick
Musical direction Tim Hawken Dramaturgy Lucas Herrmann
Performed by members of the Hessian State Orchestra Wiesbaden
World premiere 7.6.2025, Staatstheater Wiesbaden / Kleines Haus
Chris Jäger is a choreographer and dancer based in Berlin.
After studying at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt am Main, he danced with renowned companies, including Punchdrunk in Shanghai, Inbal Pinto & Avshallom Pollak in Tel Aviv, the Staatstheater Braunschweig, Helena Waldmann and Kirill Serebrennikow at the Thalia Theater Hamburg.
His choreographies are shown at municipal and state theaters such as the Staatstheater Wiesbaden, the Staatstheater Braunschweig, the Landesbühnen Sachsen in Radebeul, the Neuköllner Oper Berlin, the Theater Heilbronn and the Stadttheater Gießen as well as at independent theaters such as the LOT-Theater Braunschweig, the ROXY Ulm, the Eisfabrik Hannover and the Uferstudios Berlin and have been performed at numerous international festivals and competitions (International May Festival Wiesbaden, TANZ! Heilbronn, 28th International Choreographers’ Competition in Hanover, HAUT_SCENE Festival Copenhagen, Zawirowania Choreographic Competition Warsaw, etc.). His works SEX MIT MADONNA and DADDY SHOT MY RABBIT received public funding and toured nationwide.
In 2023, he celebrated the premiere of his first commissioned work MIDNIGHT SWINGING with the dance company of the Landesbühnen Sachsen in Radebeul. In 2019, Chris was invited as a resident artist at the Seoul Dance Center by the Seoul Foundation of Arts and Culture in South Korea. Away from the theater, Chris Jäger has also worked as a choreographer for film productions, including German productions such as “Babylon Berlin” and “Rote Sterne überm Feld” as well as Hollywood productions such as “The Hunger Games: The Song of Birds and Snakes”, “TÁR” and “John Wick: Chapter 4”.
Photo: Graziela Diez