Charlotte Engelkes is a nationally and internationally active director, choreographer, and artist. Her repertoire covers dance, theatre, opera, and performance. Characterized by an unrestrained genre mix, a personal appeal, warm humour, and surprising conclusions.

Engelkes has been touring all over the world and has performed at most of Europe’s international dance and theatre festivals. Her works include SWEET, MISS VERY WAGNER, BLACK HOLE- A QUANTUM PHYSICAL VAUDEVILLE, KAHLO –THE CONCERT, SIEGFRIED -THE VERY WAGNER HERO HOUR, KAHLO THE CONCERT, MY MOM – A DOCUMENTARY MUSICAL, TRANSPLANTATION, CONCERTO DI FIGURA, INSIDE QUEENS. 

Engelkes has been a dancer and member of Sasha Waltz & Guests since 2003. Most recently toured with Dido & Aeneas and EXODUS. She has collaborated with composer Heiner Goebbels, choreographer Raimund Hoghe, as well as director Ong Keng Sen for extended periods. Engelkes has toured HAMLET with the Tiger Lillies music group since 2005.

She directed FLYING DUTCHMAN and BERGMAN, inspired GLÄDJEN at Helsingborgs Stadsteater, performed her version of MISS JULIE – THE MUSICAL at Dramaten, and guest played The Baltic Sea Festival with MISS VERY WAGNER. She drew a crowded house at the Royal Opera with VERY WAGNERIAN NIGHT, and her GULDET ( THE GOLD) performance for children five onwards, inspired by Wagner’s opera DAS RHEINGOLD, has played over 100 performances at the Stockholm City Theater and the Malmö Opera.  The dance piece “LOHENGRIN DREAMS” premiered at Norrlandsoperan in 2019, was performed in Dansens Hus, and toured with Dansnät Sverige and to Radial System Berlin in 2020. FLY WHERE YOU WANT premiered at The Royal Swedish Opera on October 8, 2022, and HONEY HONEY at Regionteater Väst in Sweden on January 26, 2024.

Engelkes was awarded Expressen’s Music Prize Spelmannen in 2012. Sachefonden’s Fellow 2017, Stockholms stad Bellman´s award 2024.

”Charlotte Engelkes is a primitive power. She skips doubt, borders, and mastery. Engelkes steps right through all kinds of prohibitions and taboos. She is a red-haired exclamation mark that runs like a sharp knife through all she embarks on with her mix of performance art, burlesque, and dance.” Svenska Dagbladet (SE)

Photo: Mats Bäcker

AVAILABLE WORKS 2024-2025: 

INSIDE QUEENS
Charlotte Engelkes, accompanied by a royal entourage that includes opera singer Maja Frydén, circus artist Julietta Birkeland, and dancer Tobias Ulvfebrand, takes us on a journey and lets us meet both possible and impossible royalty in a tribute to the queen figure in history, fiction, and perhaps within ourselves. All this is presented in a newly composed musical stage work, held together by a fairy tale and an exploration of different aspects of responsibility. The theme of Inside Queens shifts from the physical exterior to the emotional inner states that exist within us all.  Scenes and songs written by Marina Steinmo. Newly written music by composer Willi Bopp with elements of Donizetti’s opera Maria Stuarda and a string quintet. Costume design: Anna Ardelius.

Inside Queens is a fabulous opera play for the security of your inner realm. Worldpremiere at Folkoperan in Stockholm (SE) in April 2025.

TRANSPLANTATION – A LOVING DANCE AT A CELLULAR LEVEL
On November 19, 2021, Charlotte Engelkes’s work, TRANSPLANTATION, premiered at Norrlandsoperan in Umeå, Sweden. Together with dancer, choreographer, and drag king, Sofia Södergård, a performance about identity, existence, death, and rebirth emerges.
The performance TRANSPLANTATION begins with Engelkes’ experience of her bone marrow transplant and invites us into an organic greenhouse where gardeners cultivate hearts for new planting. Two characters seek their similarities, but who really donates what to whom? Where do I stop, and do you start? Like the famous love story between Tristan and Isolde, where the old must die in order for the two of them to finally become one. Engelkes and Södergård create a life-affirming variety show with dance, cultivation tips, music, standup, comedy, drama, passion, and Wagner.

In February 2022, TRANSPLANTATION was shown at Dansens Hus in Stockholm (SE)  and in the fall of 2022, the production went on tour with Dancenet Sweden.  

Direction and concept: Charlotte Engelkes Choreography: Sofia Södergård On stage: Charlotte Engelkes and Sofia Södergård Music, sound design: Willi Bopp, The Norrlandsoperan Symphony Orchestra Lighting design and scenography: Karl Svensson Costume design: Anna Ardelius

MY MOTHER- A MUSICAL DOCUMENTARY
A celebration to all mothers in the shape of a new genre, documentary-musical. It explores how to bring documentary material and performing arts together in the space between personal and global issues. Premiere 28 October 2016.

MISS JULIE- THE MUSICAL
Engelkes’ version of Strindberg’s classic play is called a musical to emphasize that it is not only a tragedy. Engelkes plays a dangerous and strong Julie in search of kicks and attention, and meets Andreas Rothlin Svensson in the role of illusionist Jean. With drastic humour, they throw us into the long Swedish summer night and the magic of seduction. MISS JULIE – THE MUSICAL was originally made for Hamburg Schauspielhaus.

“She (Charlotte Engelkes) and Rothlin Svensson are, in the midst of the frenzy, the finest duo I have seen at Dramaten in a long time. They express the awkwardness and lust of love, the individual’s eternal lack of courage, and the loneliness of the closeness so that one could actually cry if one were not so busy laughing.”  Expressen (SE)