Joop Caboort

Born in The Hague in 1944, Joop Caboort joined the Netherlands Dance Theater in 1965.  Starting as a junior electrician, he studied all facets of the technical department and has been the company’s technical director since 1970.  That same year he became NDT’s house lighting designer and has lit 200 works for the company, including ballets by Hans van Manen, Jennifer Muller, Louis Falco, Glen Tetley, Nacho Duato, as well as many of Jiří Kylián’s.

Being always closely involved in the production process of new works for NDT, he worked with such set designers as Jean Paul Vroom, William Katz, Walter Nobbe, Nadine Baylis, and John Macfarlane, as well as with various guest lighting designers such as Jennifer Tipton.

As a freelance lighting designer he lit the full-length ballet Krigsdanser for Birgit Cullberg (Stockholm, 1979), many works for Nils Christe (co-artistic director of the Scapino Ballet), and some Dutch stage plays.  He has also worked with The Royal Ballet in London, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Royal Danish Ballet, the Paris Opera, The Joffrey Ballet, and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, among others.

Caboort teaches the course Lighting Design for the Ballet at the Dutch School for Theatre Technicians (SOTT), and has served as a stage and lighting consultant for NDT’s Dance Theatre on the Spui, The Hague.

In 1995, after 25 years as technical director of the Netherlands Dance Theater, Caboort retired and now does lighting and scenic designs on a freelance basis.

The execution of the lighting for Petite Mort was Caboort’s third work to be added to American Ballet Theatre’s repertoire since his scenery and lighting for Stepping Stones (1996) and the lighting for Sechs Tänze (2003).