THE PARIS OPERA BALLET SCHOOL

Review by Celia Ipiotis

This past April, I was fortunate to travel to Paris for a brief stay. Fortunately, I arrived on the last day of the Paris Opera Ballet School’s season at the newly restored Palais Garnier. Gold fixtures, plush red velvet upholstered seats and sparkling chandeliers add a mystique and grandiose glamour to a structure commemorating a culture that birthed ballet.

Under the reign of King Louis XIV, the 1600’s saw the rise of ballet as an artform governed by a technique and destined to change the world of dance. Collectively, these ghosts and traditions seep throughout the Palais Garnier’s labyrinthian corridors and majestic stage. Opulently decorated, the sweeping halls and passageways hold antique books, objets d’art, and paintings of prominent 18th and 19th century ballet dancers. 

In  that historic space, young dancers from the Paris Opera Ballet School performed a tradition handed down body to body, and mind to  mind for countless generations.

After locating my seat in the sold-out house, the lights dimmed and the curtain rose on Paris’ next generation of dancers. Exquisitely trained — technically, musically and dramatically — the gifted young performers executed an eclectic program that joined the students with traditions from Tudor to Bournonville and  Bejart.

Directed by the renown ballerina Elisabeth Platel, the school’s  program demonstrated the students’ clarity of gesture and precision of musicality in Antony Tudor’s soothing Continuo. Originally created in 1971 for Juilliard students, the ballet, set to Pachabel’s  popular Canon in D, accentuated the dancers’ fluidity and agile partnering skills.

Colorful and buoyant, August Bournonville’s Napoli showcased the ballon, rapid foot work and leg beats associated with the Bournonville technique, which has infiltrated much of ballet– including the Balanchine technique. The cast’s youthful exuberance cascaded through the tricky athleticism and charming flirtatiousness.

Finally, the bonds of community and fraternity flowed through Maurice Bejart’s Sept Danses grecques set to a score by the premiere Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis. The sound of a traditional bouzouki,  recognizable to many from the soundtrack of Zorba, shimmered like water under a bright sun on a Greek island.

That melody activated the line dances referencing Greek folk steps. Suggestive of male bonding, the dancers’ arms hooked over one another’s shoulders, hips switched side to side and bare chested men traveled sideways in grapevine steps. Without adding unnecessary flourishes, the dancers (women in pointe shoes) energetically stepped into the skimming moves, punctuated by hops and flexed feet balanced by arms curved up to the sides. 

Bejart succeeded in projecting the ballet base that secures the students to a traditional foundation in preparation for future vistas.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Celia Ipiotis