Denis Levaillant - La petite danseuse de Degas

Paris Opera Ballet Master and choreographer Patrice Bart plunges into the Opera’s past and brings Degas’ famous statuette "The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer" to life. For this project, Bart cooperated with composer Denis Levaillant, to translate the intrinsic modernity of a 19th century story into music and the language of the stage. From a mere investigation, the ballet became a quest to recreate the imaginative world of classical dance through the works of Degas. The story was nothing less than the starting point for a wider exploration of the wings of the Paris Opera, a place infused with memories that do so much to evoke the troubling proximity between effort and performance, between the sublime and shameful, to which Degas’ work remains the perfect testimony.

Keywords

  • Performing Arts
  • classical
  • dance
  • history

Actors

  • Koen Kessels
  • Claire-Marie Osta
  • Dorothée Gilbert
  • Mathieu Ganio
  • José Martinez

Director

  • Patrice Bart

Music, Dance, Theater


1h 52min


0 FSK

EN

France
2012
Paris Opera Ballet Master and choreographer Patrice Bart plunges into the Opera’s past and brings Degas’ famous statuette "The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer" to life.

Paris Opera Ballet Master and choreographer Patrice Bart plunges into the Opera’s past and brings Degas’ famous statuette "The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer" to life.


For this project, Bart cooperated with composer Denis Levaillant, to translate the intrinsic modernity of a 19th century story into music and the language of the stage. From a mere investigation, the ballet became a quest to recreate the imaginative world of classical dance through the works of Degas.


The story was nothing less than the starting point for a wider exploration of the wings of the Paris Opera, a place infused with memories that do so much to evoke the troubling proximity between effort and performance, between the sublime and shameful, to which Degas’ work remains the perfect testimony.

Cast & Crew