Dirk Sanders

A talented actor and filmmaker who got his start in the entertainment industry as a dancer, innovative choreographer, and ballet creator, Dirk Sanders thrilled theatergoers with his creative moves before moving into film with such efforts as White Nights (1957). Born in Djakarta, Java, Sanders studied dance in 1950s Germany under Kurt Jooss before relocating to France to begin a successful career on-stage. Soon mixing modern and academic techniques in such original efforts as Recreation, Sanders reached the apex of his early career with a successful performance of Maratona di Danza at the Berlin Festival in 1957. Performing under the name Dick Sanders, he continued on-stage with adaptations of Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950), entitled L’Echelle, and Hopop in London during the early 1970s. After meeting Muriel Belmondo (brother of popular French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo), Sanders would appear in Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le fou (1965). A television director and collaborator of Jean-Christophe Averty in his later years, Sanders took the helm of features including 1967’s Gentle Love and a television performance of Tosca (1982), in addition to a pair of dance documentaries. In July 2002, the dancer and filmmaker who had collaborated with such screen legends as Brigitte Bardot and Marcello Mastroianni died in Paris.

Source : Fandango