A danced tale by choreographer Michel Fokine with music by Igor Stravinsky, The Firebird  premiered at the Paris Opera on June 25, 1910 performed by Serge  Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. “Ivan Tsarevich one day sees a marvellous  bird, all gold and flames; he pursues it without being able to catch it,  and only succeeds in plucking one of its glittering feathers, thus  begins the libretto taken from traditional Russian tales”. But it is not  the portrait of this bird that we are going to draw, nor is it the one  George Balanchine made in 1949 based on this theme about the 1945  orchestral suite for the New York City Ballet. Stravinsky who took three  suites from his ballet in 1910, 1919 and 1945, said, “I prefer  Balanchine’s choreography for the 1945 version of The Firebird suite to  Fokine’s ballet ensemble and for the music as well – the music for the  complete ballet is too long and the quality is inconsistent” (1).

Like Balanchine, we use the 1945 concert suite, Maurice Béjart, whose  version I danced in 1979 at the Ballet du Rhin, having danced the  shorter version from 1919 at the Paris Opera in 1970. A bird of hope, or  a revolutionary icon guiding partisans wearing battledress, Béjart  explained in his foreword, “Stravinsky, a Russian musician, Stravinsky, a  revolutionary musician. […] The Firebird is the phoenix rising from its ashes. The poet, like the revolutionary, is a firebird” (2).  For our part, we should remember that birds symbolise the connection  between heaven and earth, even that the phoenix decaying to be reborn  personifies the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of Christ  in Christianity. For the rest, in his commentary on the score, the  composer Reynaldo Hahn wrote in 1910, “a very pure, very strong breeze,  coming from high above” (3). Hence the temptation to make The Firebird  a courier of light bringing consolation and hope to the hearts of men,  like Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of nature who conversed with  his brothers the birds, whether they were beautiful, radiant with great  splendour, or mere sparrows.

Source: Malandain Ballet Biarritz

More information: malandainballet.com

 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.

I

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/

Born in 1977, Fabien Plasson is a video director specialized in the field of performing arts (dance , music, etc).

During his studies at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (joined in 1995) Fabien discovered video art. He was trained by various video artists (Joel Bartoloméo Pascal Nottoli , Eric Duyckaerts , etc).
He first experimented with the creation of installations and cinematic objects.

From 2001 to 2011, he was in charge of Ginger & Fred video Bar’s programming at La Maison de la Danse in Lyon. He discovered the choreographic field and the importance of this medium in the dissemination, mediation and pedagogical approach to dance alongside Charles Picq, who was a brilliant video director and the director of the video department at that time.

Today, Fabien Plasson is the video director at La Maison de la Danse and in charge of the video section of Numeridanse.tv, an online international  video library, and continues his creative activities, making videos of concerts, performances and also creating video sets for live performances.

Sources: Maison de la Danse ; Fabien Plasson website

More information: fabione.fr

With more than eighty works to his credit, Thierry Malandain developed a very personal vision of dance. Deeply linked to the concept of "Ballet" as an aesthetic movement, he gives priority to the dancing body and the celebration of its sensuality and humanity.

Men and Dance are in the heart and soul of Malandain Ballet Biarritz.

Deep human values underpin Thierry Malandain’s approach, as he leads a troupe of performers who master the grammar of classical dance with a contemporary expression. His search for meaning and aesthetics led to a timeless tough energetic and sober style, which draws its wealth from the roots of dance as well as a dynamic vision of this art. 

"My culture and my genetic heritage come from classical dance and I assuredly remain attached to it. While I gladly admit that some of classical dance’s artistic and social codes are from another time, they give me the information I need to run and develop this company as an organism. As DNA found in all living cells and passed down through generations, this information might be altered over time to result in species diversity and evolution. That is why my dancing style leaves room for variation. Considered as a classical choreographer for some, a contemporary one for others or even seen as hereditarily neoclassical, I am simply on the lookout for a dance I like. A dance that would not only leave traces of pleasure but that would also revive the essence of the Sacred as an answer to the difficulty of being."

Throughout his creations that might be both serious and bold, Thierry Malandain is committed to developing a writing whose goal is to find harmony between classical and contemporary dance and between history and today's world. He then alternates between his own versions of classical ballets, like Roméo et Juliette, Cendrillon, Casse Noisette or L’Après-Midi d’un faune, and pure creations, such as Magifique, Une Dernière Chanson, Estro, and Lucifer, choreographed to a previously unreleased score composed by Guillaume Connesson. 

Thierry Malandain is also open-minded towards the works of his contemporaries, as evidenced by the numerous aesthetically different choreographers he supports through the Centre Chorégraphique National in the framework of the Accueil Studio or Le Temps d'Aimer festival in Biarritz, for which he works as artistic director.