De Frutos was a member of the
Laura Dean Dancers in New York from 1989 to 1992. In 1990, he choreographed his first solo work,
D, a new take on
The Dying Swan, and in 1992 he performed a solo called
Consecration set to
The Rite of Spring. He relocated to London in 1994 and started his own dance company. His solo piece
The Palace Does Not Forgive (1994) was also set to
The Rite of Spring and featured nudity, as did a number of his works from that period. In 1996, the Ricochet Dance Company performed a piece by De Frutos—
E Muoio Disperato (
And I Die in Despair) set to Act 3 of
Tosca—at the dance festival in
Bagnolet,
Seine-Saint-Denis, France, earning him a Prix d'Auteur. De Frutos' breakthrough work
Grass, a trio set to extracts from
Madam Butterfly, won a
South Bank Show Award in 1997. A 1999
South Bank Show special on his work was nominated for a
Royal Television Society Programme Award. In 2000, De Frutos won a two-year fellowship from the
Arts Council of England to study the works of
Tennessee Williams, who continued to be source of inspiration for him. De Frutos was nominated for an
Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance for the work. He won the award for Best Modern Choreography at the
Critics' Circle National Dance Awards for both
Elsa Canasta and
Milagros, a work he created for the
Royal New Zealand Ballet using a
piano roll recording of
The Rite of Spring.
Milagros was also nominated for an
Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production. In 2006, De Frutos was appointed as the Artistic Director at the
Phoenix Dance Theatre in
Leeds in Northern England. The two works were performed at the
Venice Dance Biennale in 2007, along with
Nopalitos, a piece inspired by the
Day of the Dead. He also revived two works by Mexican-American choreographer
José Limón:
Chaconne (1942), a solo to the
Bach piece, and ''The Moor's Pavane
(1949). Despite these successes, tensions behind the scenes led to his acrimonious departure from the company in 2008. and he won the Olivier Award for Best Theatre Choreographer for the West End revival of Cabaret
. He received his second nomination in the category for choreographing the original production of London Road in 2011, and he won the won the 2017 Chita Rivera Award for Outstanding Choreography in a Feature Film for the screen adaptation. From Here to Eternity'', the
Tim Rice musical which he premiered on the West End in 2013, was nominated for the
WhatsOnStage Award for Best Choreography. For a tribute to ballet impresario
Sergei Diaghilev at Sadler's Wells in 2009, De Frutos created
Eternal Damnation to Sancho and Sanchez. The piece, which included pregnant nuns and a lecherous pope, received boos and walkouts from the audience, and it was described as "barkingly offensive" with "rampant vulgarity" by a critic for the
Financial Times. The BBC reneged on broadcasting the programme, which was scheduled to air in a pre-
watershed time slot at Christmastime on
BBC 4. The experience adversely affected his mental health and work prospects during the following year. This time, a recording of the ballet was broadcast in prime time on BBC 4. De Frutos oversaw the US premiere of
The Most Incredible Thing with the
Charlotte Ballet in North Carolina in 2018, and he was invited to be an artist-in-residence at the
McColl Center for Art and Innovation in Charlotte. In 2013, De Frutos worked again with the Royal New Zealand Ballet, creating
Anatomy of a Passing Cloud for their 60th anniversary. and a National Dance Award. He created two works for the all-male dance company
BalletBoyz:
Fiction (2016) was danced to his own fake obituary, read by actor
Jim Carter;
The Title Is in the Text (2017) was performed on a seesaw to fit the theme of balance. He was commissioned by the
Royal Ballet to stage a production of
Les Enfants terribles, a danced chamber opera by
Philip Glass based on the novel by
Jean Cocteau, in 2017. During the
COVID-19 pandemic, De Frutos began to make
dance films.
The Burning Building (2021), loosely based on the
Tennessee Williams play
Out Cry, features two dancers stuck in a loop in a circle of light. In 2023, De Frutos' work
98 Días was premiered at the Venice Dance Biennale by the Cuban dance company, Acosta Danza. The piece was inspired by the 98 days spent in Cuba by the poet
Federico García Lorca. ==Awards and nominations==