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Jos van Kan
An International Director
In 1987 Jos van Kan finished his study at the Academe voor Expressie in Utrecht (specialization movement analysis and notation, Rudolf von Laban).After his study he worked for some years as assistant-director with Ivo van Hove, Johan Simons, Dora van der Groen and others. But he continued studying and also followed, as a volunteer, the rehearsal-process of for instance Piere Audi (De Nederlandse Opera) and William Forsythe (Ballet Frankfurt).

After his debut as a director in 1989 at Fact in Rotterdam, he directed at Het Zuidelijk Toneel ( H.Pinter,H.Muller,S.Becket), Artemis ( P.Mol, E. de Volder) and Carrousel ( T.Williams).
In 1992 he was invited to a master class led by the German director Manfred Karge. After this master class he was asked to work in Germany. In Belgium he directed a chamber-opera written by Astrid Kruisselbrink and in Delft an acapella musical and a chamber-opera by Marlijn Helder.

Besides classical plays van Kan directed new Dutch and German plays and worked together with young composers. Music and music-theatre became more important in his work. With the composer Micha Hamel he created more than10 music-theatre shows; for example a play for two singing actors and a Dutch traditional streetorgan (Foppe en Douwe), an opera for four singers and church bells (Hannes) and an oratorium for eight actrices and three female piano players (Het Piano-Panorama).

From 1995 he was artistic-leader of Theatre group Maccus in Delft for 7 years, a theatre-group he transformed into a music-theatre-group. He also staged baroque-operas: Purcells King Arthur (in collaboration with L.Coltof) was the opening of the Holland Festival in Amsterdam 1999 and Argenore by W.von Bayreuth at the Hans Otto Theatre Potsdam was invited to the Baroque festspiele in Bayreuth 2002.

A perfect combination of director and scholar
In 2003, when van Kan became a freelancer again, he got a grant from the F.A.P.K. to study opera-styles on three continents. He visited the New York City Opera (U.S.A.) in 2003, the Lan Yang Taiwanese Opera Company (Taiwan) and Teatro di San Carlo (Napoli, Italy) in 2004.
He staged Histoire du Soldat from Stavinsky at Oostpool, a co-production with Het Gelders Orkest and Introdans in 2003. In this year, a collaboration with De Wetten van Kepler in Den Bosch started, Broke back Mountain by Annie Proulx (premiere in 2006), will be his third show with this theatre-group and more will follow.
In 2005 he staged De dienstmeid Zerline by H.Broch at Orkater with music by Micha Hamel. He also is working as a guest director at Theatre Osnabruck where he staged Cloaca by M. Goos and will stage Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest in 2008.

2007《Second Goodbye》in Taiwan
In Taipei (Taiwan) he will stage in 2007 The Second Goodbye, a music-multi-media show composed by Marlijn Helder at the Taiyuan Puppet Theatre Company in collaboration with Ulrike Quade. Being a director and a scholar, Jos knows theatre. His excellent talent had led numerous audiences into theatre and successfully amaze them.