Milko Šparemblek (born December 1, 1928) is a Slovenian-born Croatian

dancer Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoi ...

choreographer Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which motion or form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who cr ...

, stage director and

film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...

. He has made about 40 ballet films and has about 150 premiers of his work in over 50 theatres around the world. He has received a number of awards including a Vladimir Nazor Lifetime Achievement Award and a Distinguished Artist Award from the International Society for the Performing Arts.

Early life

Šparemblek was born in Prevalje,

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

, as an only child. At the age of three, his family moved to

Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slop ...

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

to a neighbourhood called

Kustošija Kustošija is a neighborhood of a city district Črnomerec in Zagreb, Croatia. It has a brook named Kustošak running through it, and also a park-forest Grmoščica, and a border of the nature park Medvednica runs along the northern inhabited par ...

. He enrolled in the V. high school of Zagreb and participated in athletics. He attended the University of Zagreb to study Comparative literature, that same year starting to dance at the

Zagreb Opera The Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb ( hr, Hrvatsko narodno kazalište u Zagrebu), commonly referred to as HNK Zagreb, is a theatre, opera and ballet house located in Zagreb. Overview The theatre evolved out of the first city theatre opened ...

(later known as the Croatian National Theatre) under the direction of choreographers and dancers Ana Roje and Oskar Harmoš.

Career around the work

In 1948 Šparemblek joined the Croatian Ballet ensemble at the Croatian National Theatre where he studied classical, contemporary and folkloric dances. Four years later in 1952, he was promoted to Ballet Soloist by recommendation of

Dame Ninette de Valois Dame Ninette de Valois (born Edris Stannus; 6 June 1898 – 8 March 2001) was an Irish-born British dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director of classical ballet. Most notably, she danced professionally with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, ...

and in 1953 he left Zagreb for

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

on a Franco-Yugoslav Scholarship. He studied under Olga Preobrajenska, a graduate of the

Imperial Ballet School The Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet is a school of classical ballet in St Petersburg, Russia. Established in 1738 during the reign of Empress Anna, the academy was known as the Imperial Ballet School until the Soviet era, when, after a brief hi ...

in Moscow, and later under Serge Peretti in the Paris Opera School of Ballet. After completing his scholarship, he began dancing in small cabarets, music halls and working as an extra in movie production in order to pay for his studies. Šparemblek became a member of several different ballet companies, including the Janine Charrat company, the Maurice Béjart company, the Ballet de l'Étoile, the Milorad Miskovitch company and the Ludmila Tcherina company. In 1956 he choreographed his first ballet called "L'Échelle". In New York he studied contemporary dance techniques under Jose Limon and Marhe Graham.

Career as a choreographer

He was a Ballet Master in Bruxelles under the director M. Bejart in the Ballet de XX. Sc. He was a Director of the Lisbon Gulbekian Ballet and he was a Director of Ballet in the New York Metropolitan Opera Director of Ballet in the Lyon Opera the Lyon. In 1985, he choreographed Pastoral - 6th Symphony of Beethoven - world premiére, for the ballet company Ballet Teatro Guaíra, in the city of Curitiba, state of Paraná, in Brazil, which was also performed in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. He was also a director of Ballet in the Zagreb Croatian National Theatre, where in 2012 he choreographed the Miraculous Mandarin, and in 2014 he choreographed a production of the comedy ''"The good soul of Sichuan" '' by the Zagreb Municipal Theatre."KOMEDIJI Može li dobar čovjek preživjeti u ovom svijetu?"
''Jutarnji Kultura''. 22.04.2014

Awards

Television and film production

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Šparemblek, Milko 1928 births Living people Slovenian choreographers Croatian choreographers Croatian male ballet dancers Ballet masters Ballet choreographers Dancers from Zagreb