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GENEVA BALLET

PHILIPPE COHEN, Ballet Director

From the beginning of the 20^th century, the evolution of dance in Geneva was strongly influenced by the presence in Geneva of Emile Jaques-Dalcroze and subsequently Ernest Ansermet, who were responsible for the introduction of Diaghilev's Ballets russes and Nijinski to local audiences.

In 1962, to honour its re-opening, the Grand Théâtre acquired an enlarged company under the direction of Janine Charrat. Following Charrat as Artistic Director were Serge Golovine, Patricia Neary, Peter van Dyck, Oscar Araiz, Gradimir Pankov, François Passard and Giorgio Mancini.

Programs

ROMEO ET JULIETTE

Production 2009

Choreography : Joëlle Bouvier

Scénographie : Rémi Nicolas et Jacqueline Bosson

Costumes : Philippe Combeau et Joëlle Bouvier

Lights : Rémi Nicolas

Assistants to choreography : Rafael Pardillo and Emilio Urbina

Duration: 1h15 without intermission

For Joelle Bouvier, it is not the picturesque and historical argument of the ballet that is the most important, but the universal fable. The choreographer has decided not integrate all of Prokofiev’s score in it’s entirety but to concentrate on the essential articulations of the drama. Through the duration of the performance, dance will directly speak to the heart and emotions of the spectator.

PRELUDES & FUGUES - EMMANUEL GAT

World premiere at BFM, Salle Théodore Turrettini, May, 21th 2011

Choreography and lightening design : Emmanuel Gat

Music : J. S. Bach

Lenght : 1 hour - no intermission

On the title page of The Well Tempered Clavier Bach writes: "...For the Use and Profit of the Musical Youth Desirous of Learning...", and indeed this work (as all of Bach's music) is to me a kind of mentor/manual/guide/companion. Bach's way of transforming structure and form into a musical object that holds fundamental truths, is to me unmatched. The Well Tempered Clavier embodies most of my beliefs regarding art making in general and choreography in particular. It is with profound humility, gratitude and love for this music, that I embark on this project.

Preludes & Fugues will be in no way an attempt to illustrate the music of Bach nor to translate it into movement, but rather a proposition for a co-existence of structures. The core of my choreographic search, revolves around the development of mechanisms and the process of their fine-tuning. I believe dance holds much of the qualities associated with music and first and for-most, its non verbal ones. The same way the art of music relates to our deepest selves through abstract sound structures, so does dance bares the capacity to convey substance through moving, ever changing structures. Within a context of a burning relevancy to contemporary dance- making, Preludes & Fugues others a reflection on structure and form, a meditation on the unique capacities of dance.

Emanuel Gat