Esther
Dreesen-Schaback Dramaturgy

Esther Dreesen-Schaback studied Modern German Literature, English Literature and Culture at the University of Hamburg and graduated with a master's thesis entitled «Danced narration using the example of John Neumeier's ballet ‹Nijinsky›». She also trained with Angela Dauber, ballet dramaturge of the Hamburg Ballet, from 1996 to 2000. She then worked for a year at the Bavarian State Ballet under Ivan Liška and Bettina Wagner-Bergelt as assistant dramaturg and for three years at the Kiel Opera as assistant to the artistic director. As a freelance ballet dramaturge, she worked with the Stuttgart house choreographers Christian Spuck and Marco Goecke. She was production dramaturge for Goecke's works ‹Beautiful Freak› (Hamburg Ballet), ‹Viciouswishes› (Stuttgart Ballet), ‹Sonett› (Leipzig Ballet), ‹Orlando›, ‹Dancer in the Dark› (Stuttgart Ballet), ‹Nijinsky› (Gauthier Dance Company) and ‹Der Liebhaber› at the Staatsballett Hannover, where she worked as ballet dramaturge from 2019 to 2024. From 2009 to 2013, she worked as a ballet dramaturge for the Staatsballett Karlsruhe under Birgit Keil, where her collaboration with Tim Plegge deepened and accompanied his work at the Hessisches Staatsballett Wiesbaden/Darmstadt. She was also engaged by the Kevin O'Day Ballet at the Nationaltheater Mannheim and worked with Eric Gauthier on the dance sequences in the feature film ‹Mackie Messer› (2018, dir. J. Lang). Esther Dreesen-Schaback completed her state examination at the University of Heidelberg in 2019 with «Intermedial Adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – A Comparison with Kenneth MacMillan‘s ballet» and was taken on as a teacher of German and English at St. Raphael Gymnasium Heidelberg. Since then she has worked equally in both her professions.