Born in Israel 1969, the Israeli choreographer Emanuel Gat initially studied music at the Tel-Aviv Academy before he encountered dance at the age of 23 and subsequently joined the Liat Dror Nir Ben Gal Company. Shortly after this Gat began working as an independent choreographer, creating his first solo piece ›Four Dances‹ in 1994 to music by Bach. In 2004 he established his own independent company ›Emanuel Gat Dance‹ which has been based since 2007 in the French town of Istres and performed worldwide at renowned festivals including the Lincoln Center Festival in New York, the Festival d’Automne Paris, Montpellier Danse Festival, RomaEuropa, the American Dance Festival, the Tokyo Biennale and the Biennale di Venezia. Gat’s most notable works include ›Winter Voyage‹ to Schubert’s ›Winterreise‹ and his choreography to Stravinsky’s ›The Rite of Spring‹ (both 2004), as well as ›K626‹, based on Mozart’s ›Requiem‹ (2006). Emanuel Gat is regularly invited to set his work and create new choreographies for dance companies around the world including, among others, The Paris Opera Ballet, Sydney Dance Company, Le Ballet du Rhin, Tanztheater Bremen, Le Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, Ballet de Marseille, Noord Nederlandse Dans and the Polish National Ballet.  Gat has received numerous prestigious awards including the Rosenblum Award for Performing Arts (2003) and the Landau-Preis (2004). In 2006, he was named a chosen artist of the Israel Cultural Excellence Foundation IcExcellence, one of Israel's highest honors for artists. The Emanuel Gat Dance Company received Israel’s Minister of Culture Award in 2005 for outstanding dance performances.