On a program produced by José Martinez, director of the Paris Opera Dance School, choreographers William Forsythe, Johan Inger and My’Kal Stromile offer small pieces sumptuously written to stunning musical scores. The corps de ballet dancers deploy their unique technique, moving in a virtuoso manner in a mosaic of genres, between classical tradition and modernity. To savor urgently.
Forsythe splendor
©Ann-Ray-OnP
There is no need to introduce William Forsythe, the most appreciated living American choreographer in Europe. Since the 1980s, this impressive artist has continued to travel back and forth between New York, London, Frankfurt and Paris. It was in 2016, at the Paris Opera, that was created Blake Works Ia sumptuous ballet in the form of total immersion in the hypnotic music of James Blake, a multi-talented British musician with a divine voice. Today, the ballet is recreated with demonic precision: corollas of dancers in azure blue leotards follow classical postures which are subtly deconstructed into successive sways, appearing and disappearing in clusters, according to the different musical pieces. Through the exchanges of the performers, their variations in the form of new fugues, the choreography which sticks to the sounds multiplies the shifts and ruptures, in a graceful and heady mathematics.
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©Ann-Ray-OnP
Originally created for Sylvie Guillem and Nicolas Le Riche for the Sadler’s Wells Theatre in 201, the ballet was remodeled by the choreographer today for a trio of dancers. Ludmila Pagliero or Roxane Stojanov, alongside Takeru Coste and Loup Marcault-Derouard, make up this enigmatic trio, with magnetic virtuosity, captured by a dissonant composition by David Morrow. Strident at times, disturbing, the music makes the bodies appear like mobile and disjointed puppets. The influence of classicism pulls them upwards, modern jazz pushes them towards the ground, in an animal and wild rhythm. It is powerful and beautiful at the same time, the performers are directed and dance in figures of elaborate sophistication, of perfect purity, between light and darkness. The trio of dancers seems to spy on each other, tear each other apart then reconcile, like carnivorous and poisonous flowers, in a complete mixture of classicism and modernity.
“Impasse”, a splendid entry into the repertoire
Johan Inger is a Swedish choreographer who enters the repertoire of the Paris Opera with this work of incredible energy, this dance and theater piece which explodes all genres but which tells moving stories. In a completely black setting, the geometric and luminous silhouette of a house emerges in the background. A woman escapes through the door, then a man. Are they a couple? In any case, the music of Ibrahim Maalouf and Amos Ben-Tal acts like a magic filter, multiplying its tracks, oriental, jazz, organic or mambo. A third man arrives, friend or lover? These three tell us the history of the world, Adam and Eve and others, through a funny suspense.
© Agathe Poupeney
This is because they will very quickly be joined, invaded, overwhelmed by a screaming and noisy fauna of grotesque and clownish characters. A musical comes to life with dancers energized by fiery energy. Impasse tells the story of our lives, of our never satiated desire, of our encounters and our fantasies. The ending is strikingly beautiful, poignant but never sad, as the volume of the house shrinks considerably, as if life is fleeing. The dance here is droll and humorous, with iconoclastic figures, a play of shapes that pulverizes the bodies in a living, organic movement. Ibrahim Maalouf’s trumpets make the legs and arms of the characters float, like large migratory birds looking for where to land, the painted faces draw living pictures. In this opus there is a vibrant energy, a vitality and a very particular and remarkable stage presence of the dancers.
Word for world
©Agathe-Poupeney-OnP
It is a creation that is only presented during a few performances, after the sublime ballet parade, but the surprising quality of this opus commands respect. It is the work of a young choreographer very influenced by Forsythe, My’Kal Stromile, who designs a short, tense ballet, revisiting the figures of classical French dance, but blurring the codes to give the spectator an effect of surprise. In costumes designed by Chanel, flesh-colored veil tutus that outlines a lunar veil, black vests embroidered with gold, the young dancers salute tradition by infusing it with a joyful and invigorating wind of freedom and fantasy. This program is a real joy.
Helene Kuttner
