Wild beauty of the movement

by Petar PLAMENOV

26 September (Monday), 19:00
BALLET PRELJOCAJ (FRANCE)
"AND THEN, ONE THOUSAND YEARS OF PEACE"

National Opera and Ballet
Address:
Sofia, 1 Vrabcha Str.
Phone: 02 987 13 66

Choreography: Angelin Preljocaj
Music: Laurent Garnier
Scene: Syubod Gupta
Costumes: Igor Shapurin
Lighting: Cecil Dzhyovansili
Accompanist: Claudia De Smet
Cast: Ballet Preljocaj
 
Angelin Preljocaj presents a unique fusion of two distinct styles of movement: the earthy, flowing style of his contemporary work and the grand classical ballet of the Bolshoi dancers. The sets are designed by Indian visual artist Subodh Gupta, whose work was shown at the last edition of the Venice Biennale. French DJ Laurent Garnier creates the music for this promising international co-production.



Following its world premiere in Moscow, the production will first travel to Lyon, Paris and Luxembourg, then on to Amsterdam and after that to Aix-en- Provence, the home base of Preljocaj’s company, Besides his choreographic creations for his own company, the French-Albanian choreographer Angelin Preljocaj regularly creates works for other leading ballet companies, including the Ballet de l’Opéra national de Lyon, the Ballet de l’Opéra National de Paris and the Staatsballett Berlin. He has also received commissions from virtually all of the most prestigious festivals, opera houses and arts centres. He has more than twenty major, often highly unconventional dance productions to his name, including Le Sacre du Printemps, Romeo and Juliet and recently Snow White.

  Angelin Preljocaj was born in Paris. Having started out as a classical dancer, he began to study contemporary dance under Karin Waehner. In 1980 he went to New York to work with Zena Rommett and Merce Cunningham. He then resumed his studies in France, where his teachers included the American choreographer Viola Farber and the French choreographer Quentin Rouillier. He then joined Dominique Bagouet’s company before founding his own company in December 1984.

Angelin Preljocaj works regularly with other musicians and artists including Enki Bilal (Romeo and Juliet, 1990), Goran Vejvoda (Paysage après la bataille, 1997), Air (Near Life Experience, 2003), Granular Synthesis (“N” , 2004), Fabrice Hyber (Les 4 saisons, 2005), Karlheinz Stockhausen (Eldorado – Sonntags Abschied, 2007), Claude Lévêque (Siddharta, 2010) and Subodh Gupta (And Then, One Thousand Years of Peace, 2010). His productions have become part of the repertoire of many companies throughout the world including the Teatro alla Scala, New York City Ballet and the Paris Opéra Ballet. 

In career he has received numerous awards including the Grand Prix National de la Danse, presented by the French Ministry of Culture (1992), the Benois de la Danse for the ballet Le Parc (1995), the Bessie Award for the ballet Annonciation (1997), Les Victoires de la Musique for the ballet Romeo and Juliet (1997) and the Globe de Cristal for the ballet Snow White (2009). He is an Officier des Arts et des Lettres, a recipient of the Order of the Légion d’Honneur and an Officier de l’Ordre du Mérite (2006). Since October 2006 the Ballet Preljocaj, including twenty-six permanent dancers, has been based at the Pavillon Noir Centre Chorégraphique National in Aix-en-Provence. 

 


The choreographer Angelin Preljocaj reveals both subject and source of inspiration for the construction of this dance performance:

"Working within a poetic and impressionist vein, And then, one thousand years of peace relies on an assiduous but not irrational reading of the Apocalypse. One should thus refrain from looking for images or clichés that illustrate, directly or referentially, Saint John's famous text . A fertile source of interpretation, the very word Apocalypse (from the Greek apo: "to lift" and calypsis: "veil") evokes the idea of ​​revealing, unveiling, or highlighting elements that could be present in our world but are hidden from our eyes. It should thus evoke what is nestled in the innermost recesses of our existence, rather than prophesizing about compulsive waves of catastrophe, irreparable destruction, or the imminent end of the world. When dance, the art of the indescribable par excellence, assumes the role of the developer (in the photographic sense), is it not most able to realize this delicate function of exposing our fears, anxieties, and hopes? Dance relentlessly highlights the entropy of molecules programmed in the memory of our flesh that heralds the Apocalypse of bodies. It stigmatises our rituals and reveals the incongruity of our positions, be they of a social, religious or pagan nature. And then, one thousand years of peace wishes to graze these bodies that drift along blindly, tossed about by ideals and beliefs , somewhat lost between the lines of the Apocalypse ".

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