Angelin Preljocaj

Disaster strikes during an impromptu safety inspection of a building site. The workers must work together to fix the mess – but not everyone is present…

Una bailarina viaja a Moscú para integrarse en el prestigioso Ballet Bolshoi.

A woman crosses a mirrored surface in the Moroccan desert to embrace her lover, and the two take flight to the mournful notes of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major in a turning, spinning whirligig of dancing joy.

To speak of that ballet is very difficult because the theme is so popular as a fairy tale, adapted by Perrault from German folklore and then recuperated from the same folklore by the Grimm brothers, and what's more turned into an unforgettable film by Walt Disney. Angelin Preljocaj was thus trying to break a mould in which that character and her story had been cast seemingly for ever. And it is a success. Because first the setting, the stage direction are very interesting and rich. Rich are the costumes. Rich are the main ideas of the setting like the enormous magic mirror coming down from the sky, or like the deep underground mine turned into a vertical surface on which the seven dwarfs are dancing like dragon-flies on their strings.

To speak of that ballet is very difficult because the theme is so popular as a fairy tale, adapted by Perrault from German folklore and then recuperated from the same folklore by the Grimm brothers, and what's more turned into an unforgettable film by Walt Disney. Angelin Preljocaj was thus trying to break a mould in which that character and her story had been cast seemingly for ever. And it is a success. Because first the setting, the stage direction are very interesting and rich. Rich are the costumes. Rich are the main ideas of the setting like the enormous magic mirror coming down from the sky, or like the deep underground mine turned into a vertical surface on which the seven dwarfs are dancing like dragon-flies on their strings.

Olivier Assayas’ Eldorado is a riveting documentary chronicling the efforts of Ballet Preljocaj to choreograph an otherworldly icon of 21st century music: Karlheinz Stockhausen’s ethereal Sonntags-Abschied.

"Angelin Preljocaj, Topologie de l'invisible" offers 3 films corresponding to 3 choreographies. 1.- Annonciation (2003), directed by Angelin Preljocaj. Annonciation dances the encounter between the Angel Gabriel and Mary, when the angel announces that she is God’s chosen one – an essential scene of conception, of the birth of faith and culture. 2.- Les Raboteurs (1988), directed by Cyril Collard. A contemporary couple in an empty room in a Parisian. They talk of love, vision, points of view and illusion. Is what these three dancers on the wooden have frozen in space with their choreographed movements and the positions of the three workers in Gustave Caillebotte’s painting The Floor Scrapers? 3.- Un trait d'union (1992), directed by Angelin Preljocaj. Adaptation of La Chambre by Jean-Paul Sartre. A story of a woman who has married and her second husband has turned insane. Her whole surrounding urges her to let the man be transported into an asylum, yet she refuses.

A filmed performance of Stravinsky's ballet Les Noces (The Wedding), depicting a bleakly cynical interpretation of the marriage ritual.

A filmed performance of Stravinsky's ballet Les Noces (The Wedding), depicting a bleakly cynical interpretation of the marriage ritual.

A filmed performance of Stravinsky's ballet Les Noces (The Wedding), depicting a bleakly cynical interpretation of the marriage ritual.