This one act ballet was created on 6 January 1924 yt he Ballets-Russes at the Monte-Carlo Opera, in choreography by Brnoislava Nijinska and sets and costumes by Marie Laurencin. Without any particular plot, the ballet showed a few sophisticated young ladies and three young men parading in a vast sun drenched white room, as an exercise in distinguished and light-hearted gallantries. Among ther performers one could see Vera Nemtchinova in the roleof the beautiful stranger, Bronislava Nijinska as the hostess, and two young girls enjoying a balmy May evening.

In 1923, nothing could please Francis Poulenc, a great admirer of Ballets Russes, more than this commission from Diaghilev, who suggested writing a ballet with atmosphere, a sort of moderne Sylphides. To quote the composer « I thought of tese gallant frolics in which one couldeither see nothing or imagine the worst, as in some paintings by Watteau ».

Les Biches are the ballet of pleasure : the pleasure to retrieve a never-ending childhood. A rumbustious hurly-hurly « mad extravagance at the edge of the abyss » according to Maurice Sachs. For, unknown to them, the « années folles » were dancing on a volcano.

This historical context, Diaghilevs initial wishes, and the ballet by Nijinska, were the basis of my interpretation. But in the end, the decisive trigger was an element of the costumes by Marie Laurencin. Les Biches are adornet with feathers, like birds of paradise. With such a detail I could establish a link Diaghilevs suggestion to Poulenc, since white feathers are part of the wings of the Sylphides. The vast white room could then be filled with a sky where heavenly creatures could move about. A beautiful stranger, the hostess, and two young girls enjoying a balmy evening in May will appear through the gates of this paradise, in the original choreography by Bronislava Nijinska, as if surging from the past.

Thierry Malandain

 Born on the 13th April 1959 in Petit-Quevilly, Thierry Malandain  followed the usual path of a classical dancer but with a strong taste  for the unconventional and an unusual tenacity. Instead of undertaking  training in famous institutions, he followed the teachings of Jacques  Chaurand, Monique Le Dily, René Bon, Daniel Franck, Gilbert Mayer and  Raymond Franchetti. All of them are eminent and engaging teachers with a  strong and picturesque personality… Violette Verdy, who chaired the  Prix de Lausanne at which Thierry Malandain competed in 1978, hired him  to join the Paris Opera Ballet for the season 1977-1978. There, he met  Jean Sarelli, who was then “The” ballet master, and followed him when  Sarelli took over the direction of the Ballet du Rhin. Thierry Malandain  stayed in Mulhouse until 1980 and then joined the Ballet Théâtre  Français de Nancy, directed by Hélène Traïline and Jean-Albert Cartier,  until 1986. He successfully made his first experiences as a  choreographer during the six years he stayed in Lorraine. In 1984, he  won the 1st Prize of the Volinine competition with Quatuor op3, to a  score by Guillaume Lekeu. In 1985 and 1986, he succeeded Maguy Marin as  winner of the 1st Prize of Nyon choreographic competition in Switzerland  with Sonatine, to a score by Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Métamorphosis,  to the music of Benjamin Britten. At this time, Thierry Malandain was  already ambitious and very demanding in his choice of music.

In 1986, Thierry Malandain made a bet. He left the  Ballet Théâtre Français de Nancy with eight dancers and set up the  Compagnie Temps Présent in Elancourt (78), in the suburbs of Paris. He  deliberately chose to get off the beaten track and undertake a mammoth  task. The following season, he was awarded by the Fondation de la  Vocation and the Fondation Oulmont and won the 1st Prize of La Baule  choreographic competition, the 1st Prize of Vaison-la-Romaine  choreographic competition and the Prix de la Nuit des Jeunes Créateurs  in Paris with Angelin Preljocaj and Claude Brumachon. Thierry Malandain  began to make himself known as a promising young talent thanks to  several works: ­­L’Homme aux semelles de vent (1986), created to the  music of Benjamin Britten and staged again under the title Les  Illuminations (1989) for the dancer Patrick Dupond and the Ballet  National de Nancy, Edgar Allan Poe (1988), to scores by Claude Debussy  and André Caplet, and especially Folksongs (1986), choreographed to the  music of Benjamin Britten and performed by several companies, including  the Ballet de Tours of Jean-Christophe Maillot. As people only talked  about the “jeune danse française” in 1988, Thierry Malandain, like his  colleagues, contributed to the development of dance in the suburbs while  proclaiming his attachment to the vocabulary of classical dance. He  even created ballets for opera house companies, such as Danses qu’on  croise (1987), choreographed to the music of Johannes Brahms for the  Ballet de l’Opéra de Nantes. His unique positioning was confusing for  the French choreographic community but not for the international  audience. On the contrary, people, especially in Belgium, started to  talk about the French choreographer who achieved the feat of creating  Les Sylphides, to the music of Frédéric Chopin for the Ballet royal de  Wallonie, and Petite Lune, to a score by Dmitri Shostakovitch for the  Royal Ballet of Flanders, in the same year (1990).

In 1991, Thierry Malandain created Pulcinella by  Igor Stravinsky on the stage of the previously called Maison de la  Culture in Saint-Etienne. At this time, the director Jean-Louis Pichon  was trying to turn the institution into an Opera Theatre—named  L’Esplanade in 1994. He needed a choreographer who would be sensitive to  music and able to have a strong presence on the ground. He invited the  Compagnie Temps Présent for a residence in Saint-Etienne. This event  marked the beginning of a collaboration that lasted six years, during  which the choreographer created several of his best-known ballets: La  Fleur de pierre (1994) by Sergei Prokofiev, L’Après-Midi d’un faune  (1995) by Claude Debussy, Ballet mécanique (1996) by Georges Antheil,  Sextet (1996) by Steve Reich, Casse Noisette (1997) by Piotr Illitch  Tchaikovsky… It was also during these years that Thierry Malandain came  up with the original idea of recreating the ballets composed by Jules  Massenet.

In 1997, the French Ministry of Culture and  Communication and the City of Biarritz offered Thierry Malandain to set  up the first classical Centre Chorégraphique Contemporain in the Basque  coastal resort of Biarritz. It happened so fast that the Centre  Chorégraphique National – Ballet Biarritz opened in September 1998 in  the Gare du Midi, a large building abandoned by trains and whose two big  square towers overlook Biarritz pleasant gardens.

The company did not reduce its activity. With the support of  Jean-Louis Pichon, Thierry Malandain began to recreate the complete  works of Massenet (Le Cid, Le Carillon and Cigale) from 1999. In 2000,  La Chambre d’Amour, a musical creation by Peio Çabalette telling a  beautiful local legend, came as a tribute to the new integration of the  choreographer in the city. In 2001, Thierry Malandain paid tribute to the Ballets Russes by creating an eloquent, touching and audacious programme.

In 2003, Ballet Biarritz took a major creative step  with Les Créatures, choreographed to the music of Ludwig van Beethoven.  This powerful, graphic and ambitious work engendered a feeling of  maturity and poise that earned the Ballet greater recognition. For the  first time in its history, the troupe officially performed in Paris  (Théâtre national de Chaillot) thanks to Dominique Hervieu and José  Montalvo, while Les Créatures were nominated at the Benois de la Danse  in Moscow and received the Critics Prize at the 19th International  Ballet Festival of Havana in Cuba.

In 2004, Le Sang des Etoiles confirmed the  company’s success. The CCN then became one of the most productive  choreographic centres, with the biggest number of performances per year  and a strong international presence. The institution also grew in  strength. In 2000, Thierry Malandain’s ability to create unanimity led  him almost naturally to the head of the Temps d’Aimer festival,  organised in Biarritz. In the same year, he founded a cross-border  junior ballet in collaboration with the Basque Spanish community in  Donostia-San Sebastián. He juggled all these projects during four years.

In 2005, the choreographer gave up his post as  artistic director of Le Temps d’Aimer festival to focus on his work. He  then created two works based on the spirit of Pre-romantic ballet: Les  Petits Riens (2005), to the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Don  Juan (2006), to a score by Christoph Willibald Gluck. In the meantime,  the Paris Opera Ballet commissioned Thierry Malandain to create L’Envol  d’Icare (2006), a ballet set to a score by Alfred Schnittke, which was  later nominated at the Benois de la Danse in Moscow. Most of Thierry  Malandain’s ballets are now listed in the repertoire of other big  companies worldwide, such as the Sadamatsu Hamada Ballet, the Teatro di  San Carlo of Naples, the Staatsoper and the Volksoper in Vienna and  numerous ballet troupes from Caracas, Hong Kong, West Palm Beach, Aspen,  Cairo, Riga, Tunis, and Karlsruhe… In France, his works entered the  repertoire of the Ballet de l’Opéra national du Rhin, the Ballet  national de Marseille, the Ballet de l’Opéra national de Bordeaux, the  Ballet du Capitole de Toulouse…

In 2008, Thierry Malandain created L’Amour sorcier  by Manuel de Falla and Le Portrait de l’Infante, choreographed to the  music of Maurice Ravel. In this ballet, the dancers performed around  three Ménines of Manolo Valdès, a Spanish painter and sculptor  influenced by Diego Vélasquez. Thierry Malandain began to miss the  fieldwork. By the end of 2008, after having celebrated the ten years of  his company in Biarritz, the choreographer resumed his post as artistic  director of Le Temps d’Aimer festival to the request of Didier Borotra,  the mayor of the city. In December, Thierry Malandain staged a new  production of Carmen (1996), to the music of Franz Schubert. This work  marked his appointment to the head of the CCN Ballet Biarritz.

In August 2009,  Thierry Malandain was made an “officier” in the Order of Arts and  Letters. The new name of the company, “Malandain Ballet Biarritz”,  heralded a new era for the choreographer. Two new creations followed:  Magifique (2009), to the music of Piotr Illitch Tchaikovsky and Roméo et  Juliette (2010) by Hector Berlioz. Both found favour with audiences and  critics. For the second time of his career, Thierry Malandain  collaborated with a composer, Guillaume Connesson, resulting in the  ballet Lucifer (2011). The score was interpreted by the Orchestre de Pau  Pays de Béarn, conducted by Fayçal Karoui, who is also the musical  director of the New York City Ballet. In 2012, the Opéra de Reims  commissioned Thierry Malandain to create a ballet to celebrate the tenth  anniversary of their fruitful collaboration. As he was given a free  rein, the choreographer chose to explore an unusual musical world by  using traditional French songs interpreted by Le Poème Harmonique of  Vincent Dumestre to create Une Dernière Chanson. This work was awarded  by the Grand Prix du Syndicat de la Critique Théâtre, Musique et Danse  in the dance category in 2012.

In 2013, as Malandain Ballet Biarritz gave more than  hundred performances per year, Thierry Malandain created Cendrillon to  the music of Sergei Prokofiev to the request of Laurent Bruenner, the  director of the Opéra royal de Versailles. The performances of this  ballet were given on the wonderful stage of the Royal Opera of the  Palace of Versailles with the accompaniment of the Orquesta Sinfónica de  Euskadi from Donostia-San Sebastián, conducted by Josep  Caballé-Domenech. A triumph of humanity, Cendrillon was unanimously  acclaimed by the press and audiences. In 2014, Thierry Malandain was  named “Best Choreographer” at the Taglioni European Ballet Awards,  organised by the Malakhov Foundation in Berlin.

French association of professional critics gave the “Best company »  of the year 2017 Award to the Malandain Ballet Biarritz following its  performances of Noah in Chaillot, national theatre of the Danse.

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n 2019, Thierry  Malandain was appointed at the Académie des beaux-arts in Choreography  Department, along with Blanca Li, Angelin Prejlocaj and Carolyn Carlson.  

In 2020, Thierry Malandain win the SACD 2020 award in the Choreography Department,.  

In 2021, as part of his commitment to supporting  young and emerging dancers, Thierry Malandain will be sharing the bill  with Martin Harriague, associate artist at the CCN Malandain Ballet  Biarritz, for an evening of Stravinsky. They created L’Oiseau de feu and  Le Sacre du printemps respectively at the Scène nationale Le Cratère in  Alès and then at Chaillot-Théâtre national de la Danse in Paris.

In 2023, based on an idea by Laurent Brunner,  Director of Château de Versailles Spectacles, and Stefan Plewniak,  violinist and Principal Conductor of the Royal Opera of Versailles,  Thierry Malandain will create Les Saisons to music by Antonio Vivaldi  and Giovanni Antonio Guido. The premiere will take place on 25 November  2023 at the Palais des Festivals de Cannes – Festival de Danse Cannes –  Côte d’Azur France and then at the Opéra Royal de Versailles with the  Orchestre Royal de Versailles conducted by Stefan Plewniak.               

Source : Malandain Ballet’s website

More on : http://malandainballet.com/

Georges Flores began his career in 1982. He is responsible for the editing and post-production of numerous works of video art broadcast on French channels. Some of his earliest work was recording shows: between 1988 and 1992, he covered the entire International Festival for Innovations in Music Production and Composition, several parts of which, in the form of reports, were broadcast on ARTE channel on the programme Mégamix. He regularly produces recordings for current music. This experience has also led him to work in opera and classical music, producing recordings of many great works. He also provided the video coverage for the Massenet Festival. Dance is another of Flores’ favourite areas. He has worked with Thierry Malandain, director of the National Choreographic Centre – Malandain Ballet Biarritz since 1992. The documentary Voyage (Travel), produced in 1996 during a tour in Morocco, in collaboration with the French Cultural Institute and with the ground-breaking participation of Antoine Livio and of Yvette Chauviré, introduces us to the character and creations of the choreographer and demonstrates Flores’ links to choreography. He also regularly works with other contemporary choreographers who create unique artistic worlds. Flores has also produced a great deal of images used in set designs for music, dance and opera. His first piece of international work saw him take part in the season opening of the Teatro Massimo in Palermo in January 1993, as part of a new production of Esclarmonde by Massenet, directed by Giannandrea Gavazzeni. Alongside this work on live shows, he creates documentaries for non-specialist audiences in the field of Scientific, Technical and Industrial Culture (CSTI), aimed at the education sector. Today, Flores dedicates his time to producing and creating projects that are important to him, as well as faithful collaborations for television or renowned arts organisations. His portfolio now includes the recordings of over fifty great lyrical works.

Source : Georges Flores