\n<\/p>\n
He chose to do community service instead of the army, working in a psychiatric rehabilitation center in Frankfurt. Already 19, late for a dancer, he started going to ballet classes and attending performances of the Frankfurt Ballet, where he \u201cgot the big shock of William Forsythe,\u201d Spuck said, referring to the American choreographer\u2019s groundbreaking explorations of ballet technique and conventions.<\/p>\n
He met Kathryn Bennetts, a r\u00e9p\u00e9titeur at the Frankfurt Ballet, who advocated for him to be given a place at the John Cranko School<\/a>, a dance academy in Stuttgart. \u201cAlthough he didn\u2019t have much training and was old for a beginner, he had all the physical prerequisites for a dancer,\u201d Bennetts said. \u201cI thought he had a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n Stuck struggled through \u201cthree painful years\u201d alongside much younger students, he said. After being told he wasn\u2019t technically strong enough to join the Stuttgart Ballet, he found jobs in contemporary troupes, including Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker\u2019s Rosas<\/a>. Later, he co-founded a small dance group in Stuttgart with a colleague and started to choreograph short pieces.<\/p>\n He was finally accepted by the Stuttgart Ballet and danced there until 1998, then became the company\u2019s resident choreographer from 2001 to 2012. With commissions from other companies, including the Norwegian National Ballet and the Royal Ballet of Flanders, Spuck gradually established himself as a choreographer with a gift for creating convincing narrative works, which he also parlayed into the world of opera, directing productions including a well-received \u201cFaust\u201d in Berlin<\/a>.<\/p>\n He was \u201ctaken aback,\u201d he said, when he was approached about running the Zurich Ballet, which had been dominated for 16 years by the Swiss choreographer Heinz Spoerli. But his tenure there was a resounding success. He introduced Forsythe, Wayne McGregor, Crystal Pite and other contemporary choreographers into the repertory, created 10 ballets of his own, and built a loyal public as well as a strong relationship with his dancers. (Fifteen from the company in Zurich followed him to Berlin.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n