Zoë Greten wins Leo Spreksel Award 2025
Dancer and choreographer Zoë Greten was awarded the Leo Spreksel Award on Sunday 18 May 2025. The encouragement prize for emerging choreographers was presented at Korzo in The Hague, following the performance of Tender Resistence by Faizah Grootens, the previous recipient of the award, during the CaDance Festival.
The award was presented by Leo Spreksel, former artistic director of Korzo. Explaining his choice for Zoë Greten, he said: “Zoë is still young but determined, and shows a powerful and expressive creativity as a maker. She effortlessly blends the energy and movement language of hip-hop with the techniques of ballet. She knows and commands her own body. The duet Unveiling Echoes convinced me that Zoë is a promising voice for the future.”
About Zoë Greten
Zoë Greten (2002) is a Dutch freelance dancer and choreographer. She began her professional dance training at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague (2014 – 2019) and continued her studies at the Dutch National Ballet Academy in Amsterdam, where she obtained her Bachelor's degree in 2023. During her training, Greten participated in summer programmes at the Princess Grace Academy in Monaco and the Royal Ballet School in London, where she won both the Achievement Award and the Direct Entry Award. In her graduation year, she interned with NDT 2 in The Hague. After graduating from the Dutch National Ballet Academy, she took part in the International Contemporary Dance Programme at Nuova Officina della Danza in Turin.
Beyond her ambitions as a dancer, Greten has had a passion for choreography from an early age. In 2015, she won the TV competition Superkids with a self-created solo, after which she further developed her choreographic talents during her dance training. She created two works for Dansers of Tomorrow, the Dutch National Ballet Academy’s annual end-of-year performance, and in 2021, she participated in the Choreographic Academy of Dutch National Ballet, where she had the opportunity to choreograph for the Junior Company. Since then, she has created two works for the Junior Company: If only I knew the right way for the 2022 Shooting Stars tour programme (2022) and Sonder for the Made in NL tour programme (2025).
About the Leo Spreksel Award
The Leo Spreksel Award was established in 2018 to mark the farewell of Leo Spreksel as artistic director of Korzo, in recognition of his longstanding contribution to Dutch dance and his dedication to talent development. The award is presented every two years to an emerging choreographer and includes a residency at Korzo, with coaching by Spreksel himself.
Previous recipients of the award include Christian Yav and Sedrig Verwoert (2019), Justin de Jager (2021) and Faizah Grootens (2023).
