For years now the Paris Opera Ballet has been proactive in its efforts to acquire new works by contemporary choreographers, but nearly every one of them has come unstuck in their attempt to meet the venerable classical company halfway. The latest to fall short of the hype is Belgian star Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, whose...
Read more →We need to talk about sexism in dance. The glass ceiling that female choreographers still face today has been in the news recently, but what we see on stage matters, too, and the issue is bound to arise with new dance versions of the epitome of Orientalism, Arabian Nights. So it did at Aix-en-Provence’s...
Read more →
Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo is in many ways as insular as the tiny city-state it operates from. Under choreographer Jean-Christophe Maillot, the company has forged ahead on its own terms – a footnote of edgy neoclassicism to France’s dance story, dominated in recent memory by contemporary choreographers. This year Monaco celebrates Maillot’s two decades...
Read more →
Romeo Castellucci’s On the Concept of the Face, Regarding the Son of God made headlines in France last season when performances at the Théâtre de la Ville were disrupted by accusations of blasphemy and demonstrations from religious groups, requiring a police presence every night. The Italian director is unlikely to enjoy such free publicity...
Read more →
Absurd human comedy has always been the stock-in-trade of Macha Makeïeff and Jérôme Deschamps, the popular duo behind the French TV show Les Deschiens. Makeïeff now works solo, and has been the director of Marseille’s national theatre, La Criée, since 2011. Her latest production, Les Apaches, dispenses with words altogether for the physicality of...
Read more →
The celebrations scheduled for the tricentenary of the Paris Opera Ballet School will be upon us next week, and with them the inevitable question: what exactly is the French style today? Some clues may lie in the monumental company work that now returns to the repertoire at the Opéra Bastille, John Neumeier’s Third Symphony...
Read more →
While headlines demand to know yet again why the French are so unhappy, the Paris stage has been on to the prevalent mood for some time now. The playwright of choice this season has been that bard of bourgeois anxiety and despair, Henrik Ibsen, with three productions in a matter of months; after Hedda...
Read more →It was the talk of the ballet world upon the annoucement: Benjamin Millepied will be the next artistic director of the Paris Opera Ballet. The choreographer and former New York City Ballet dancer won’t formally take over until 2014, and much is still unknown about his directing style and plans for the company. In...
Read more →