It is the cry of the heart, the cry of the body of a skinned alive, undoubtedly the only truly flamboyant male personality to have vibrated, and even brought to their feet the halls of the Garnier and Bastille operas since the departure of Nicolas Le Riche. He was already noticed in the School’s shows, then his leaps, his flights, the crazy energy that emanated from his appearances made his image impose itself, beyond academic diktats, aesthetic canons. Certainly not the physique of the regulatory prince, but what a hurricane! The public loved him. However, devoured by questions, various sufferings and prey to undisguised hostility on the part of an institution very attached to its principles, the boy who dreamed of being a star waited too long, while so many other less striking dancers than him, attained supreme distinction. And when finally Aurélie Dupont, realizing a little late that it was time to put it into orbit, decided to propel it after a Bayadere historic, in April 2022, the dream was emptied, after twelve years spent between these prestigious and restrictive walls.
© Ann Ray – Opéra national de Paris
Like the sheriff who throws away his star in westerns, because he no longer believes in justice, Alu therefore gave up the career that was open to him. He left, and found in free shows, of his invention, and on television screens, a new breath which soothes him and suits him better, even if he shines less, and the public s Bored without him. The book he is publishing today sheds light on an extraordinary trajectory, about which we have often wondered, and shows the harshness, the loneliness of an education and a life as a dancer blocked in his desires for expressive freedom and dynamic. And reveals some flaws in the institution, dreaming of it being warmer, more human, more inspiring, even more intelligent in the transmission and way of bringing it to life.
And as the dancer, the artist, the man are united in Alu in a very special synthesis, he intersperses his biographical stories with dreamlike, poetic pages, where this star seeker freely lets his imagination run wild, as lit as his entrechats . We follow it with great pleasure, because the work and the character are moving, both playful and tortured, and a great kindness emerges from these pages where the artist regrets not having received more on the place of his first dreams, with the exception of Brigitte Lefèvre, who, despite his reproaches, was a support for him. “Be a disciplined rebel,” she advised him. But he pays tribute to a loving family, who never let go of him in this life trajectory led in pain, and at thirty years old, rejoices at having found a serenity, a freedom which leads him to take a look less critical of what he experienced, finding that, ultimately, he lived well. His text is like him, seductive, absolute, touching. And his pen is alert. She pirouettes…
Jacqueline Thuilleux
The Star Prizeby François Alu. Ed. Robert Laffont (240 p., €19.90)
Photo © Editions Robert Laffont
