Martino Müller was originally a dancer and skater and is ultimately a Swiss choreographer. His first professional position was as a dancer with the Karlsruhe Ballet in Germany. A year later he danced with the Stuttgarter Ballet under the direction of Marcia Haydée. His original interest in classical ballet changed when he came into contact with the contemporary work of Jiri Kylián. He then moved to the Netherlands to perform a function at the Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT I). Martino ventured to choreography in 1992 when he was asked to work for NDT II, the junior group of the Dutch company.
His first choreography ‘Who’s Watching Who’ turned out to be a striking debut and received an important prize from a Dutch art organization. That same year Martino was invited to work for the Festival der Kunste in Bad Gleichenberg, Austria. This led to the production ‘A Woman Can Take You To Another Universe – Sometimes She’ll Leave You There’ – who then recorded NDT in his own repertoire. NDT I then asked him to make a new piece. The premiere of this creation, ‘Heidi’, took place in 1994. Since then he has choreographed for several prestigious dance companies, including the Lyon Opera Ballet, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Gulbenkian Ballet in Portugal, the Stuttgart Ballet, BalletWith Columbus, Ohio and the Göteborg Ballet in Sweden.
Müller’s first choreography for a musical ‘Notre Dame de Paris’, directed by Gilles Maheu, was nominated for a Canadian Theater Prize in 2000. In that show, which toured the world, he mixed for the first time modern dance with acrobatics and that has led to his involvement with Cirque du Soleil.