Angelin Preljocaj was born into a family of Albanian immigrants in 1957 and received a solid training as a dancer in France before taking part in a course with Merce Cunningham in New York in 1980. His themes of love, war and labour are perennial human themes enriched by his carefully observed details from everyday life with a dance vocabulary strongly oriented towards physicality and sensuality. His own company, Ballet Preljocaj, resides at the Pavillon Noir in Aix-en-Provence, a building entirely dedicated to dance with Angelin Preljocaj its artistic director. His company is touring worldwide and gives about one hundred performances per year. His ballets SPECTRAL EVIDENCE and LA STRAVAGANZA were both conceived for the New York City Ballet.

SPECTRAL EVIDENCE: From 2013 to music by John Cage is based on the Salem Witch Trials and a recording of vocal music by John Cage. It has four men in dark suits and clerical collars and four women in white dresses with different patches of red silicon.

LA STRAVAGANZA: From 1997 to music by Vivaldi, Evelyn Ficarra, Serge Morand, Robert Marmandeau and Åke Parmerud deals with Contemporary Culture meeting 17th century society. Dancing to Vivaldi and electronic music we experience a merger of fantasy and reality, a dialogue of the past with the present, the old world with the new world.

Angelin Preljocaj's themes of love, war and labour are enriched with a dance vocabulary oriented towards physicality and sensuality.

Preljocaj in New York

Maurice Béjart’s compelling staging of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony has been enchanting audiences worldwide since its
inception and its idea of universal brotherhood remains highly topical. “Alle Menschen werden Brüder” (All men will be
brothers) is the powerful message communicated by the unforgettable music and choreography.
From the stage of the NHK Hall in Tokyo 250 dancers and musicians send this message out into the world. “It is a ‘manifestation’,
in the deepest sense of the word.” This performance was filmed in November 2014, and is the first recording of this work.

Maurice Béjart’s compelling staging of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony has been enchanting audiences worldwide since its inception.

The Ninth Symphony by Maurice Bejart

Choreographer Andile Ndlovu explores the idea of reclaiming joy and putting back together that which is broken, in this co-commission from The Washington Ballet and Marquee TV. 

Inspired by the yoga, pilates, and physical therapy he underwent to recover from a recent injury, Ndlovu incorporates routine tools like yoga balls and structural movements like planks and bridges, morphing them into playful and unstructured movements. 

In re:member, six dancers cross space and time, moving and interacting as if they are characters on a playground. Tapping into themes of nostalgia and reclaiming joy, the dancers shift, taking on new roles and identities, bending, folding, and evoking familiar classroom shapes. 


In re:member, choreographer Andile Ndlovu explores the idea of reclaiming joy, and putting back together that which is broken,

re:member

Sensual and entrancing, Kylián's Wings of Wax is an allegorical journey danced beneath the branches of an inverted tree to a hauntingly beautiful score of selections by musical giants Philip Glass, Heinrich von Biber, John Cage, and Johann Sebastian Bach.

Kylián's Wings of Wax is an allegorical journey danced beneath the branches of an inverted tree to a hauntingly beautiful score.

Wings of Wax

Set to contrasting scores by Charlotte Harding and Keaton Henson, Them/Us is an inventive double bill asking where we see ourselves in relation to the “other,” and explores the fine balance between them and us. Them is created through a unique choreographic process by the dancers. The piece explores the versatility of movement which the company has always been known for and proves to be an exciting culmination of the experience gained after 20 years of working with leading artists. Tony and Olivier Award-winning choreographer Christopher Wheeldon concludes the evening with Us, exploring human connections and culminating in a tender duet.

Them/Us is an inventive double bill asking where we see ourselves in relation to the “other,” and explores the fine balance between them and us.

Them/Us

Betroffenheit is a word which means trauma, bewilderment and shock. A fitting title for this boundary-stretching hybrid of theater and dance, created by Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young. 

The powerful performance is inspired by Young’s real-life trauma, conjuring art from the pain of losing his daughter, niece and nephew in a fire.  

Combining tap, salsa, spoken word, song and puppetry, Betroffenheit is a witty, tender exploration of isolation and coming to terms with tragedy. It was the recipient of the 2017 Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production and the Outstanding Performance in Modern Dance at the Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards. 

Watch this thrilling performance recorded during its sold out run at London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre.

Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young's Olivier winning BETROFFENHEIT is a bold hybrid of theater and dance that explores trauma, grief and addiction.

Betroffenheit

Hofesh Shechter’s Clowns holds a mirror up to a world enthralled by violence. Dancing to the hypnotic rhythm of a wild beating heart, Shechter’s clowns destroy each other in a maelstrom of murder and desire. Hofesh Shechter’s Clowns is a 30-minute piece for 10 dancers created by Hofesh Shechter in 2016, that will tour the UK and Europe for the first time during 2018. We propose to film Clowns, directed by Hofesh, as a highly distinctive performance reimagined for the screen. Set in a grotesque circus, the work has its dancers costumed as 18th century clowns, playing against a red curtain lit by garlands of theatrical lights. The company’s dancers move to an aggressive rhythm that reflects a world fascinated and entertained by violent acts. His own score combines electronic and orchestral elements. Hofesh Shechter’s Clowns is intimate in its characterisation and humour, yet it demonstrates Hofesh’s great skill at harnessing the political and societal zeitgeist.

Hofesh Shechter’s Clowns holds a mirror up to a world enthralled by violence.

Clowns

In the fall of 2017, we meet Hedda Gabler on the main stage of the Norwegian State Opera. She is one of the most famous dramatic characters in the world, an icon created by Henrik Ibsen. The play of a deep psychology is transformed into a ballet, created by the stage director Marit Moum Aune on the music by Nils Petter Molvær. Hedda is furious because her disappointment is gnawing. The honeymoon in Europe is behind her, and now she has returned home with her husband, Jorgen. Nothing was as she had thought. And when her former lover, Eilert Loevborg, emerges, she reacts in a dangerous way for everyone, including herself. It is for the second time that the renowned stage director, Marit Moum Aune, transforms the play of Ibsen into a ballet. She staged Ghosts by Ibsen with Cina Espejord. This ballet has become one of the greatest successes of the National 
Ballet of Norway.

The play of a deep psychology is transformed into a ballet, created by the stage director Marit Moum Aune on the music by Nils Petter Molvær.

Hedda Gabbler

The Mariinsky Theater presents Le Corsaire (The Pirate), a ballet in three acts, with a libretto based on the poem The Corsair by Lord Byron. Originally choreographed by the Balletmaster Joseph Mazilier to the music of Adolphe Adam, this production, Pyotr Gusev’s 1955 revival, features a star studded roster of Mariinsky dancers including Kimin Kim (Ali), Alina Somova (Medora), Timur Askerov (Conrad), Nadezhda Batoeva (Gulnare) with Daria Ionova, Anastasia Nuikina, and Maria Khoreva as the three Odalisques.

The Mariinsky Theater presents Le Corsaire (The Pirate), a ballet in three acts, with a libretto based on the poem The Corsair by Lord Byron.

Le Corsaire

With BiT, Maguy Marin signs her forty-ninth opus in barely forty years. At the center of this brutal charge against ordinary barbarism lies the question of rhythm.

The title refers to the computer term for the unit of measurement of information, this word-syllable gives an initial rhythmic drive, after which the show takes shape, relentless succession of scansions and impulses, twists and tensions orchestrated with the feverish rigor of a dance both joyful and desperate. As a constant in the piece, in an obsessive continuity, the same structure: the farandole, a form of collective dance passed down through the ages, is the recurring motif. All the colors of the human condition slide in, love rites and dances of death. On an exhilarating techno music all in beats, the entire show has no shortage of cruelty on the analysis of contemporary society, in the dark conclusion of the dominations exerted on the intimate as well as the social, a deterioration of which we ourselves are the actors. BiT takes us into the depths of our humanity and questions our individual responsibilities in the turmoil of each passing day.

BiT takes us into the depths of our humanity and questions our individual responsibilities in the turmoil of each passing day.

A group of Young Men brought together by the indiscriminate brutality of war struggle to maintain their humanity in an unending cycle of combat and death.

A group of Young Men brought together by the indiscriminate brutality of war.

Young Men

A captivating story told through BSL, voice and movement, Unspoken Spoken is performed by a cast of disabled and non-disabled dancers. Created and filmed with support from digital commissioning body The Space, Arts Council England and the BBC, the film seeks to raise awareness of Candoco’s work amongst a digital audience for the first time.

A captivating story told through BSL, voice and movement, Unspoken Spoken is performed by a cast of disabled and non-disabled dancers.

Unspoken Spoken

This dance piece explores life with Dementia (and Alzheimer's Disease) by combining dance, music, and film with Khalil Gibran’s moving poetry.

The Poet focuses on the relationship between a father, John Welker, and his daughter, Rachel Van Buskirk, as he grapples with losing his memory. As his memory fades he struggles to hold on to what he knows through his poetry, revealing a life-affirming inner world that is both mysterious and beautiful. 

This unique piece was designed for film and is filled with beautiful cinematic scenes. The Poet was choreographed and co-directed by Tara Lee with breathtaking cinematography from Guay and Cody Collins. Watch the dancers of Terminus Modern Ballet explore the difficult topic of Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease through the mysterious and indefinable medium of dance.

Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre explores the experience of living with Dementia through dance.

The Poet

Second Seed is a defiant response to D.W Griffith’s 1915 silent film The Birth of a Nation. Griffith's film is an assertion of White Supremacy and paints the KKK as saviors of America in a post-Civil War society. Second Seed is a collision with this American artifact, confronting Grffith's delusion and the enduring cult of White victimhood.

Second Seed is a collision with this American artifact, confronting Grffith's delusion and the enduring cult of White victimhood.

Second Seed

Adapted from the anti-play Offending the Audience by Austrian playwright Peter Handke and enriched by Ohad Naharin’s innovative, movement language Gaga, the Bessie-award winning Naharin’s Virus exemplifies the choreographer’s aesthetic with the sole purpose of showing the naked reality of a moment in space. The varied soundtrack includes classical music, original music by Karni Postel, and adaptations of traditional Arabic music by Habib Alla Jamal and Shama Khader.

Adapted by Ohad Naharin from the anti-play Offending the Audience by the Nobel-winning Austrian playwright Peter Handke.

Naharin's Virus

Internationally, the Hamburg Ballett was one of the first companies that returned to its studios after the lockdown. John Neumeier developed the idea of creating a ballet observing and structured according to social distancing. At the beginning, it was not certain, when, where or if this ballet might be publicly performed. The work was an exercise in creativity out of necessity for the choreographer and his dancers. John Neumeiers' concept involves all 60 dancers of his company. To respect social distancing, he creates separate parts of the work with small groups of two to eight dancers. "'Ghost Light' is an ensemble work that I am developing in fragments. It is like the separate instrumental lines of a symphony – or a traditional Japanese meal: a sequence of carefully arranged, hopefully 'delicious' miniatures. How the separate parts will unite to create a complete work, will depend on the

John Neumeier developed the idea of creating a ballet observing and structured according to social distancing.

Ghost Light

After the success of their collaboration in Boxe Boxe (2010), choreographer Mourad Merzouki and the Debussy string quartet once again explore the mixing of genres. This piece transforms boxing into a poetic dance, accompanied by music that channels Brazilian energy through classical string instruments. Although they are improbable, Merzouki and Compagnie Käfig’s crossbreeding of genres and styles consistently prove visionary and exciting. Boxe Boxe Brasil is no exception.

Choreographer Mourad Merzouki and the Debussy string quartet once again explore the mixing of genres

Boxe Boxe Brasil

BalletBoyz perform Liam Scarlett’s Serpent and Russell Maliphant’s Fallen with music by Max Richter and Armand Amar, accompanied by BBC Concert Orchestra.

BalletBoyz perform Liam Scarlett’s Serpent and Russell Maliphant’s Fallen.

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