Rite de passage

Keep dancing – Danser Encore
The Lyon Opera Ballet will perform soli all over the CN D, in a choreographic circuit resulting from the meeting between one different dancer and one different choreographer for each solo. “Danser Encore” wishes to reflect the diversity of contemporary creation and immerse us into a living creative process for contemporary dance. Initiated in 2020 by Lyon Opera Ballet director Julie Guibert, the “Danser Encore” cycle relies on a desire to showcase the individuality of the company’s dancers and to support choreographic creation in the difficult context of a global pandemic by banking on the fertile dialogue between choreographers and performers. From the creation of tailored soli, “Danser Encore” exposes the team work of two people and highlights how diverse contemporary creation is. After conceiving 13 original soli, the Lyon Opera Ballet will continue the project by creating more pieces that will use all the resources of the body, image and movement. Occupying the entire space of the Centre national de la danse over the course of two days, over 10 soli will be performed in the studios and the Atrium, revealing the fragility, lightness, density and particular grain of each performer and the magnitude of their desire to dance.

Rite de passage
« A solo is a kind of rite of de passage, an appointent with yourself » says the choreographer Bintou Dembélé. This rite of passage is performed by Merel van Heeswijk, the solo was created especially for her. A choreography that clashes two worlds and gestures: the world of street dance, underground and clubbing with the world of classical dance and contemporary, improvisation, of the performer. And it is under the constraint of the spiral, associated with the hypnotic Drumming by Steve Reich, that Merel van Heeswijk, finds her way of freedom.

Source: programmes of the CND and the Lyon Opera