AWARDS
Daan received six times the Musical Award:
- Best Choreography: Grease (2023)
- Best Choreography: All Stars (2019)
- Best Choreography: De Marathon (2018)
- Best Choreography: Spring Awakening (2011)
- Best Choreography: Urinetown (2010)
- Upcoming Male Talent: Chicago de musical (2000)
Was also nominated six times:
- Best Choreography: Come From Away (2022)
- Best Choreography: Woef Side Story (2019)
- Best Choreography: De Gelaarsde Poes (2017)
- Best Choreography: Moeder Ik Wil Bij De Revue. (2015)
- Best Choreography: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (2009)
- Dutch Actor Employed Abroad: Chicago the musical, West End – London (2002)
Jury report
Grease (2023)
The name of Daan Wijnands has become an indispensable part of the musical world. And whether it is Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat or Spring Awakening, this veteran always manages to surprise with choreographies that clearly bear his own signature. In Grease, Wijnands creates a dance design that pulsates with energy and crackles with infectiousness on all levels. His work is never predictable and never falls within the assumed frameworks.
In this version of Grease, Wijnands shows what dance can do. He whips up the sparkling ensemble to perform a major feat, with Grease Lighting and the Handjive as true spectacles. And he even lets the dancers float for a moment.
Wijnands’ work often leans towards breathtaking acrobatics. It is difficult to sit still with this choreographer, who makes dance an exciting, integral part of the performance in Grease. Always serving the story, but equally idiosyncratic and consistently providing a stamp that stands for craftsmanship and passion.
The jury enthusiastically awards Daan Wijnands the Award for best choreography
All Stars (2019)
As a choreographer, Daan Wijnands is a major fixture in the musical world, with an unprecedented productivity and creativity. Last season alone, he created the choreographies for three musicals: Selma Ann Louis, Woef Side Story – for which he was rightly nominated – and All Stars. For the choreography he created for the latter performance, his nomination was cashed in in the form of a Musical Award, and it is – after De Marathon last year – the second time in a row that he has received this award.
In All Stars, adult men – just like in the TV series of the past – escape the monotony of work and marriage when they play their game of football on the green mat. And in the meantime, they daydream about the time when their lives were a lot less demanding. Such men – who are especially not out to lay their souls on the table straight away – do not fit into a guesswork choreography with elegant dance steps. Daan Wijnands nevertheless came up with an alluring and inventive choreography that does full justice to their characters and desires. Tough, chunky and yet elegant, and above all very credible, are the steps that these amateur footballers make, and the liberties that they allow themselves, while dancing, almost in the best football tradition. They convince in their ‘battle dance’ with the women, they impress, and are almost touching, with their umbrella parade in the rain. The moment when Mark comes dancing on stage when Bram sings his declaration of love is moving. And the sublimation of the reversal of values ??when the men and women, in precisely non-traditional role patterns, ‘attack’ each other while dancing is groundbreaking and enchanting: the women as dashing football furies, the men in a tranquil Swan Lake-like setting – and the fact that they are of course not accomplished ballet dancers at that moment is even more moving.
After a lot of successful choreographies in the past, Daan Wijnands takes his creativity and inventiveness to an even higher level in All Stars, and he does his profession a great service in doing so. The jury therefore rewarded him with a Musical Award for Best Choreography.
The Marathon (2018)
The marathon, based on the film of the same name, is one of the most innovative musical productions of recent years, and Daan Wijnands’ choreography contributes greatly to this.
The highlight is the physical display of power, by bodies that can no longer withstand the test of time, on the conveyor belts (or rather: treadmills) that appear on stage. But at other moments too, it becomes clear how inventive, playful and adequate Wijnands’ choreography is. He never misses his target: what he came up with suits the men who populate the garage: they are not very elegant, and already old, with a motor system that offers no prospect of great sporting achievements – and yet Wijnands seduces them into a credible war of attrition, at an equal pace, that is also moving.
Frolicking, lively and energetic: that is Wijnands’ choreography, throughout the entire performance – when the actors are busy with elastic bands, when they build a boxing ring in which they compete against each other, when they create an ‘obstacle course’. The frolicking dance with the barriers is beautiful, and the sudden movement, from left to right, during the birthday visit is witty, which gives the text that is being sung at that moment extra power. And the ‘spontaneous’ dance in the hair salon is a dance that you as a spectator want to join in with, with or without the splits.
Wijnands makes an almost moving statement at such a moment: the visible pleasure that the actors experience with their not-too-tight bodies is perhaps even more impressive than a perfectly executed dance by trained jeune premiers.
Daan Wijnands has a great track record in the musical profession and also designed the choreography for Snorro this year. It is high time that he is rewarded for his work, and more specifically for what he achieved in De Marathon, with a Musical Award in the category Best Direction / Choreography.
Urinetown (2010)
As a choreographer for a musical production, it is of utmost importance to ensure that the production produces a wealth of physically moving figures, and that each musical number, within the given, forms a support for the story.
With Urinetown, you have done this in a very special and unique way. You have succeeded in dealing with feelings and emotions in a very playful way with all your own musical knowledge, strength and talent.
Thanks to your work, the very talented cast is exceptionally motivated and touched by the right chord and therefore also very driven to provide a wonderful evening of theatre.
Nowhere is there the feeling that the cast members have to do a choreography that is too ambitious, but you have succeeded in ensuring that the cast can work with unbridled pleasure and fly with wings.
The great success of Urinetown is therefore largely due to your work.
Upcoming Male Talent
Chicago (2000)
Daan Wijnands gets the most out of several small roles in the musical Chicago.
He is almost always present on stage, does not dominate anywhere but impresses everywhere.
His dancing is a supporting element in the performance and has a special allure
