Ballet Preljocaj in Aix Something’s in the Air this Summer

Aix-en-Provence’s Ballet Preljocaj celebrates the return of more “normal” times with a series of performances throughout the city from July 12th – August 8th, 2021. Artistic Director Angelin Preljocaj and his team will dance outdoors at Parc Jourdan, the Théâtre de l’Archevêché, in the Quartier Beisson, and at Pavillon Noir their home-base. Un Air de Danse #1 celebrates friendship and the fact that we can gather once again. The program includes a mix of paid and free performances.

The Ballet Preljocaj, including its 24 permanent dancers and Artistic Director Angelin Preljocaj, reside at the Pavillon Noir in Aix-en-Provence. Since 2006 the building is entirely dedicated to dance.

Performance Details

Ballet Preljocaj provided the following information on the Un Air de Danse #1 program. Booking details are below, with seating limited per the applicable health regulations.

July 12th and 13th at 10 pm
Location: Parc Jourdan
Artistic Director: Angelin Preljocaj
Dance Company: Ballet Preljocaj

Gilles Deleuze’s voice on Jimi Hendrix’s sensual and revolutionary riffs: here is the soundtrack to Angelin Preljocaj’s latest creation. His admiration for Gilles Deleuze led him to create a choreography set to the sound of the philosopher’s voice, where the grammar of bodies and the experiences of reflection resonate together. An imaginary conversation between Deleuze, Spinoza (through his reflection on body and movement in Ethics) and Hendrix allows the choreographer to display his taste for philosophy. He explores a new choreographic space where the body, as an object we know, becomes a medium that raises the questions of our world. This creation navigates between philosophy and pop culture as if we found ourselves suddenly immersed in the Woodstock experience.

©Ballet Preljocaj

July 16th at 10 pm
Location: Parc Jourdan
Artistic Director: Michel Kelemenis
Dance Company: Kelemenis & CIE

Can we imagine life on earth with the human species as the only inhabitant? What would life be without animals? Michel Kelemenis worked with the theme of environmental decay to create a fiction about the legacy the younger generations will be left with. A quartet of sweet and dreamy artists, Camille Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals and delicate lighting are the key characters of a creation that progressively turns to abstraction. A great way of catching the imagination of a younger audience who is already aware of the challenges ahead and who is more than used to vivid imagery. Bodies liven up, and lights give colour to a scenography working as a mirror to a depleted world. The performance is a fable for the whole family to discover as an invitation to question, dream and dance in another world.

July 19th at 10 pm
Location: Parc Jourdan
Dance Company: Companie la Liseuse

When Georges Appaix enters the stage, words start dancing, bodies are talking, letters are flying, and poetry traces pirouettes in the air. It’s the alpha and the omega, the ABC, the whole alphabet even, up to its ugly ducklings: X, Y, Z. Three letters for a final performance full of ease and grace. For this last show, aptly named XYZ, Georges Appaix goes for one last ride with his fellow travellers, in a choreographic continuum where past and present meet and where letters and words bounce around in an energic flow of bodies, sounds, voices and music. Together, they chant an ode to the word, to the movement and to the dancing body that speaks and navigates somewhere between abstraction and narration, their joy turning into a blissful wave of happiness that runs beyond the stage and the show.

July 22nd and 25th
Free access from 9 – 9:30 pm upon presentation of a ticket to the 10 pm performance.
Location: Parc Jourdan
Performance: Les Affluents

Between theatrical scenography and contemporary art show, Antoine Dubois and Laurent Le Gall have created Walk Until Blindness, a performative set-up where five dancers circle a 360° installation. Space and movement become experimental means for the five performers to let their imagination run free. Anyone can come and discover this creation to relax, ponder over it or make up their own story with what they see.

July 22nd at 10 pm
Location: Parc Jourdan
Performance: Les Affluents 1

A concept initiated by Angelin Preljocaj, Les Affluents is an excellent platform for the creations of the Ballet’s dancers. Since its inception in 1995, more than thirty pieces have come to life. Les Affluents 1 gives these creators a chance to display their work. Emma Perez Sequeda choreographed a trip to another world, a ritual, a passing where the sacred helps her reach a new state of consciousness. Clara Freschel celebrates a magnificent marriage between body and voice and between dance and opera, in a “danced recital” set to melodies by Rossini or Mozart that can be at times grandiloquent, comical, secretive, or sensual. Matt Emig created a solo where a most fragile character experiences a transformation, like egg yolk turning into a bird. Leonardo Cremaschi imagined an ode to women in the form of an interlude followed by five separate scenes and asking one question: from the 1940s to today, what has been the evolution in the status of women?

July 25th at 10 pm
Location: Parc Jourdan
Performance: Les Affluents 2

Les Affluents 2 gives these creators a chance to display their work. What exactly is reality? asks Anna Tatarova. Committed to a psychiatric hospital, her character refuses to live in reality and seeks refuge in her dreams. Víctor Martínez Cáliz choreographed a duo driven more than ever by the need to use its voice and be in touch, a desire increased by the current reality of our society. Baptiste Coissieu performs his solo, evoking both the passing of time and the state of schizophrenia while wandering between turmoil and stupor and between hallucinations and unwavering convictions. Finally, Cecilia Torres Morillo lets us discover the tradition and the avant-garde of a picturesque Spanish world in a duo that satirically blends fashion, history, and reflections.

July 27th at 8 pm
Location: Pavillon Noir
Performance: Inventaire
Artistic Director: Josette Baïz
Dance Company: Companie Grenade

Like Jacques Prévert’s Inventaire with its sparkles of life, laughter and tears, Josette Baïz’s creation is a kaleidoscopic piece acting as a mirror to the plurality and the singularity of contemporary dance. The choreographer chose excerpts from significant portions of the international repertoire, emphasising the intimacy of the pas de deux to tell the stories of a boy and a girl, whose lives have been punctuated by emblematic encounters. Together, they embark on a humorous journey through their past, revisiting the various energies that animated their bodies thanks to Wayne McGregor, Hofesh Shechter, Jean-Claude Gallotta, Barak Marshall, Katharina Christl, Damien Jalet, Jérôme Bel, Nicolas Chaigneau and Claire Laureau. A physical and technical performance of impetuous, modern and vivid dancing, constantly invigorated by the youthful energy of the Compagnie Grenade’s dancers.

July 28th at 10 pm
Location: Parc Jourdan
Artistic Director: (LA)HORDE
Dance Company: CCN Ballet National de Marseille

At the head of the Ballet National de Marseille since 2019, the (LA)HORDE collective has turned the institution into a flagship of inclusive, decompartmentalised and plural dancing, the group’s trademark. An approach materialised by the Ballet’s programme, an observation of the history of dance through four international figures. Four worlds converse in a series of creations designed as confrontations between two conceptions that share their singularities. By American choreographer Lucinda Childs, Tempo Vicino and One Of Four Periods In Time (Ellipsis) by Portuguese choreographer Tânia Carvalho share the same intensity in the relationship between music and dance. Mood, by Voguing French queer icon Lasseindra Ninja, and Lazarus, by Irish choreographer Oona Doherty, share the same passion. An intergenerational programme, where the group’s energy exalts dance.

July 30th at 8 pm
Location: Pavillon Noir
Performance: Garden of Chance

Magician and illusionist Kurt Demey and choreographer Christian Ubl have found a fantastic playground where they can give life to fiery, outrageous and bizarre creations. Their improbable duo is an invitation to experimentation and the blooming of a surrealist garden. A subtly participative dance space that is open to every fantasy. Both acolytes grasp the art and the craft of the other to invent an artistic object. In an area where chance is a game, they work tirelessly to create a shared environment where discussing hormones or playing dice or cards is possible. Receiving acclaim at the Festival d’Avignon, the piece expertly plays with satire, humour and bad faith, blessing us with a magical and truculent moment thanks to its unrelenting aplomb.

©Ballet Preljocaj

August 3rd and 4th at 10 pm
Location: Théâtre de l’Archevêché
Artistic Director: Angelin Preljocaj
Dance Company: Ballet Preljocaj
Performance: Swan Lake (Le Lac des Cygnes)

Navigating the fertile waters of the repertoire, Angelin Preljocaj sets Swan Lake on fire with his talent for dramaturgy, mastery of precision in gesture and movement, body language kept halfway from existing styles and his taste for fairy tales that tell tales of life. Reinventing Swan Lake gives wings to a choreographer who is delighted to take on the challenge of creating his version of the Lake. Rather than pointes, Preljocaj focuses on arm movements, jumps, rising in a particular fashion, on a form of elevation and on a desire to find the lyrism of bodies. Between dream and reality, between fabricated and mental images, between intimate moments and group scenes and between Tchaikovsky’s composition and contemporary arrangements, the piece displays fascinating and perfect alchemy of classical ballet and modern dance coupled with the choreographer’s imagination.

August 8th at 10 pm
Location: Théâtre de l’Archevêché
Artistic Director: Emanuel Gat
Dance Company: Emanuel Gat Dance
Performance: LoveTrain2020

Admirers of Emanuel Gat who join him on LOVETRAIN2020 must prepare for a high-speed trance! His contemporary “musical” for fourteen dancers is a chorographical ode to the sound and the atmosphere of the 1980s, materialised by the music of Tears for Fears, with all its utopic power and epic groove. This salvatory immersion in a decade full of optimism and energy gives Emanuel Gat a chance to explore once again the infinite possibilities of the body. Drawing from an exhilarating ambience, he jumps from pure moments to choral dances, following the rhythm of the British band and reminiscing a carefree and more festive time of the past. Spirits are high, but the allegory of bodies seeking freedom after lockdown is omnipresent. Surrounded by over-draped companions dressed in unisex clothes, Emanuel Gat successfully brings dance to a state of exaltation.

Free Performances

Date: July 12th and 13th at 9 pm
Location: Parc Jourdan
Artistic Director: Angelin Preljocaj
Dance Company: Ballet Preljocaj

Created in 1998, the GUID. (literally “urban group of danced intervention”) tours the cities of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, bringing dance to unexpected places while presenting pieces from Angelin Preljocaj’s repertoire. Discover their new programme at the Parc Jourdan right before Angelin Preljocaj’s latest creation.

Date: July 16th at 9 pm
Location: Parc Jourdan
Performance: Underground

A creative performance by Romain Bertet: head in the ground, he plants himself in the earth and lets his body rest at the border between the world of the living and a place beyond. A creation about invisibility, where the body of a dancer and the words that come with it open the door to some mysterious world.

July 19th at 9 pm
Location: Parc Jourdan
Performance: Impromtu N°3

Émilie Lalande, an artist, associated with the Ballet Preljocaj, invites us to an original performance built on games on chorographical chance. Along with her dancers, she turns to all audiences, giving them the role of “spect-actors”, which leads to playful, creative and participative moments with young and old, under the shade of the Parc Jourdan’s trees.

July 30th at 5 pm Quartier Beisson and 7pm outside Pavillion Noir
Dance Company: Companie le Scribe
Performance: Game of Dance

Adel El Shafey confronts his chorographical world with a soundtrack taken from Bruce Lee’s Game of Death to talk about adaptation. His solo will be at the heart of the cité Beisson, the neighbourhood where he grew up, and in front of the Pavillon Noir, where he unveiled his first creation back in 2015.

Ticket information

Booking options:
On the website
By phone: +33 (0) 4 42 93 48 14
At the Pavillon Noir and the various venues on the night of each performance.
On the France Billet network

Ticket Prices

At the Parc Jourdan and the Pavillon Noir
Ticket price: €18 for adults
(€9 for children, young people under 26 and students)

At the Théâtre de l’Archevêché
Ticket price: €25 for adults
(€15 for children, young people under 26 and students)

Locations:

Pavillon Noir
530 Avenue Mozart, Aix-en-Provence
Parc Jourdan
Avenue Anatole France, Aix-en-Provence
Théâtre de l’Archevêché
26 Rue Gaston de Saporta, Aix-en-Provence
Quartier Beisson
Rue Vincent Auriol, Aix-en-Provence

Food Services:

At the Parc Jourdan and the Pavillon Noir, food trucks will offer drinks and homemade snacks prepared with fresh and seasonal products.

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Carolyne Kauser-Abbott

With her camera and laptop close at hand, Carolyne has traded in her business suits for the world of freelance writing and blogging. Her first airplane ride at six months of age was her introduction to the exciting world of travel.

While in Provence, Carolyne can be found hiking with friends, riding the hills around the Alpilles or tackling Mont Ventoux. Her attachment to the region resonates in Perfectly Provence this digital magazine that she launched in 2014. This website is an opportunity to explore the best of the Mediterranean lifestyle (food & wine, places to stay, expat stories, books on the region, travel tips, real estate tips and more), through our contributors' articles.

Carolyne writes a food and travel blog Ginger and Nutmeg. Carolyne’s freelance articles can be found in Global Living Magazine, Avenue Magazine and City Palate (Published Travel Articles).