Bolero Variations

“After ‘Swan Lake’ and ‘The Rite of Spring’, I wanted to work on another famous piece: Maurice Ravel’s ‘Boléro’. This short piece, so well known these days, was first performed in 1928 at the Paris Opera, and has inspired many choreographers such as Maurice Béjart and Odile Duboc, conductors like Leonard Bernstein and the band leader Glenn Miller. My first memory of ‘Boléro’ is the interpretation by Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean during the Sarajevo Olympic Games in 1984: a
presentation on ice that was revolutionary in its field and has since become legendary. But the bolero is not just a work by Maurice Ravel; it is also a Spanish dance invented in the 18th century and a South American style of music and dance. ‘Besame Mucho’ is a bolero, as is the song ‘Somos Novios’. In this new piece I wanted to work with this other dimension of bolero.”Raimund Hoghe

Source: Maison de la Danse programming

Duration 2h