The Stage

Le Parc

Published Thursday 20 October 2005 at 12:40 by Gavin Roebuck

The Paris Opera Ballet has an illustrious history dating back over 300 years. Their dancers are some of the finest in the world. How odd and disappointing that on their first visit to the capital in over two decades the should choose to present Le Parc, a unimportant contemporary work which fails to show off the technique and talent of the performers.

Using fragments of diverse pieces of music by Mozart, the dancers perform simple and at times repetitive steps and at one point run around the stage playing musical chairs. With a small vocabulary of steps, the choreography is inadequate for this great company. It must be disillusioning for dancers to have to perform this inconsequential work when they strive so hard to acquire technique and artistry and have so short a career.

Le Parc is about emotions and codes of behaviour from 18th century fiction such as Choderlos de Laclos’ Les Liaisons Dangereuses. The choreography explores interpretations of sexual desire from the first encounter through to its consummation. About five minutes from the end of this contemporary dance piece there was a touching duet, beautifully danced by Laëtitia Pujol and Yann Bridard. The whole experience of the work, performed without the relief of an interval, was like that of tantric sex without the pleasure of the long build up to the climax.