Following Françoise Adret and Yorgos Loukos, who both introduced a significant diversity of styles to this house of classical background, Julie Guibert’s work as artistic director sustainably revolved around the quality and uniqueness of the artists. With that legacy in mind, Cédric Andrieux, the Ballet’s current artistic director, is now determined to play his part in making it the home of the greatest choreographers of yesterday, today and tomorrow. For both the audience and dancers’ sake, his goal is to promote works of great mastery, with a programme doing a full split. This display of complementary repertoires and eras embodies the legacy of American postmodern and 1990s French dance, along with experimental forms. The programme explores a wide variety of geographic and aesthetic matter while digging into the Ballet’s archives (with over a hundred pieces), encouraging contemporary artists to reinvent classics, and, once again, groundbreakingly intersecting disciplines.
Just like the collection of pieces they dance their way through, the Ballet dancers’ body memory is monumental. The first programme produced by the Théâtre de Chaillot marks the arrival of the Olympic Games in France in 2024. This unique event is hosted by Les Nuits de Fourvière on the ancient site of Lyon’s Roman theatres as part of the Cultural Olympiad, and marks the return of choreographer Rachid Ouramdane to the Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon, this time with the XY collective and the Maîtrise de Radio France. Also for the Nuits de Fourvière, the collective formed by choreographer Mette Ingvartsen is coming to the Lyon Opera for an exceptional, virtuoso performance mixing dance and skateboarding. The autumn programme is an accurate representation of the extraordinary diversity of the choreographic languages the Ballet is capable of embracing. During the very same night, two major late-20th century figures – Jiří Kylián with the dramatic piece Bella Figura and Trisha Brown with the mischievous creation Set and Reset / Reset – are featured alongside Jan Martens and her solo, Period Piece, specially created for the company in 2020. Some masterpieces are made to be enjoyed again and again: a new take on Merce Cunningham’s Beach Birds is presented alongside Mycelium by Christos Papadopoulos, which was already met with acclaim at the last Lyon Dance Biennial. The Lyon Opera Ballet is home to many artists of today and tomorrow; this year, two major pieces were added to the repertoire: Last work by Ohad Naharin, and Lucinda Childs’ Concerto. This work will be in dialogue with Noé Soulier’s solo Self Duet and a new creation by Nacera Belaza. These three choreographers do not know each other. Yet their works concur through similar writing essence and in their radicality, virtuosity, and high standards, immersing the audience into a smooth trance-like state no one can be indifferent to. This may be the common trait of all the pieces that make up this season: each performance will change you, ever so slightly.
Deeply rooted into its region and relevant on the international scene, the company is devoted to telling and writing part of the history of dance with constant awareness to the issues of our time.