What a parade of dances directed by Thomas Jolly and choreographed by Maud Le Pladec, director of dance for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games ceremonies! In tune with the disco-pop soundtrack and current trends on sets, the show featured classical, contemporary, music-hall, French cancan, hip-hop and other urban styles.
The vertical dance of the legendary Retouramont company took place on the Notre-Dame scaffolding. As for the fabulous experts in acrobatic lifts of Compagnie XY, led by Rachid Ouramdane, head of the Théâtre National de Chaillot, they took over the Pont-Neuf, where tightrope walker Nathan Paulin soared 34 meters above ground.
Over 2,000 artists took part in the pouring rain. Among them were performers from the Malandain Ballet Biarritz, Ballet de Lorraine, Opéra National du Rhin, Opéra National de Bordeaux and Conservatoire National Supérieur de Danse et de Musique de Paris, along with a team of Paris firefighters, in the aquatic tableau created by Le Pladec at the bottom of the Tribunal de Commerce.
The particularly successful hip-hop and electro sequence – electro is France's only urban dance – was performed by the Mazelfreten company. Under the direction of Brandon "Miel" Masele, an unlikely electro performer whose rapid, disjointed arm movements are like a crazy merry-go-round, and Laura "Nala" Defretin, a hip-hop icon, the troupe, founded in 2016, unleashed bursts of contagious energy.
Two principal dancers of the Opéra National de Paris also made an appearance. Between South Africa, where he danced with the Joburg Ballet in June, and South Korea, where he has just taken part in a gala with his friends from the Opéra National de Paris, Guillaume Diop, also a juror on the second episode of "Drag Race France," delivered a somewhat restrained performance on a platform set up on the rooftops of the Hôtel de Ville.
As for Germain Louvet, he leaped onto the fashion show runway, graced by Princess Madoki, waacking queen – a dance born in the 1970s in Los Angeles nightclubs –, the breathtaking breaker Bboy Haiper on crutches, the young Canadian krumper Adeline Kerry Cruz and her mentor the krumper Jr Maddripp, performers in Le Pladec's Silent Legacy.
Chosen by Jolly to work with him on this energetic adventure, Le Pladec has been director of the Centre Chorégraphique National d'Orléans since 2017. From her very first pieces in 2009, she has enjoyed bringing movement and music into direct, open dialogue. In particular, she has worked on scores by contemporary composers such as Fausto Romitelli (1963-2004) for Professor (2010), Julia Wolfe in Democracy (2013) and Michael Gordon with Concrete (2015).
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